Effective mathematics teaching practices include not only probing student thinking and selecting student strategies to share but also facilitating discourse and encouraging reflection about important mathematical ideas (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2014, pp. 36-37). Encouraging students to use precise academic vocabulary to…

This study aimed to examine the application of a realist hands-on learning approach and its contributions to optimizing the solid geometry conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills of students. It employed a non-equivalent pre-/post-test quasi-experimental research design. The results showed that there was a statistically significant…

This article features a fifth grade mathematics exploration planned to facilitate students' productive struggle. The exploration was a catalyst for a team of educators to unpack the teacher's experience when facilitating students' productive struggle. The team called this "teacher productive struggle" and shares about the construct…

This study investigates the characteristics of Japanese primary school mathematics lessons that adopt a problem-solving approach. We argue that these characteristics are reflected in three key aspects: collective teaching and learning, the lesson as a "drama" (i.e., its structured flow), and the focus on mathematical knowledge. In this…

Early critical thinking and sustainability awareness development is crucial for equipping future generations to handle global issues in an increasingly complicated and interconnected society. This study examined how 9-year-old primary school students applied their knowledge through a collaborative Mystery assignment, demonstrating a Thinking Skill…

Problem-solving is, by nature, a creative process which, by teaching through the implementation of research and discovery activities, allows students to create their knowledge, revise it and link it to broader systems. The aim of the research was to describe and analyse the process of solving biological problems through activities that are…

As a person obsessed, perhaps overly so, with preventing water damage, an ailing dishwasher led to a system whereby who did the dishes in our household became a matter of chance. What happened next, however, was besmirchment of my character from hockey teammates, close friends, and especially from a room full of future elementary school…

Background: During school lessons participants can face challenging pedagogical problems such as when science and religion topics interact. Potential types of pedagogical problem and what participants can do in response are unclear. Research designs exploring pedagogical problem solving should investigate teachers' thinking processes and include…

With the aim of engaging more students in meaningful thinking in mathematics, a cohort of Year 7 students were introduced to a 'Building Thinking Classrooms' framework for learning in mathematics. In this paper, the authors outline the key features of the implemented framework and share reflections on challenges and benefits.

This article reports on an empirical study that investigates the way students' performance in solving arithmetical tasks may be related to their performance in solving algebraic tasks. The sample consisted of 203 Grade 6 students. The arithmetical tasks involved arithmetical expressions with known quantities, whereas the algebraic tasks involved…

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education has become a global focus to foster learners' Twenty first-century skills and achieve the sustainable development of society. Design challenges present children with a real-world design problem to solve, as design challenges inspire children to think creatively and apply…

The current study was designed to examine the effect of metacognitive instruction strategies on the development of metacognition in grade 8 students and study variation in the development of metacognition in students with varying academic abilities. The study involved 80 grade 8 students from a public high school as a sample. A quasi-experimental…

This study is an examination of 79 elementary prospective teachers' (PSTs') capacity for recognizing the core ideas involved in modeling fraction addition problems and their difficulties in solving and presenting the process of fraction addition using area, length, and set models. PSTs completed a written task in which they represented the process…

Barlow et al. (2018) discussed three types of mistakes worthy of inspection: procedural errors, inappropriate solution processes, and misconceptions. Here, the authors focus on procedural errors, as these often led the teachers in their professional development project to limit their inspection of mistakes to correcting. Despite this narrow focus,…

This study introduces a framework for analyzing opportunities for mathematical reasoning (MR) in school mathematics, using MR-relevant claims and their derivation as the unit of analysis. We contend that this approach can effectively capture a broad range of opportunities for MR across various teaching situations. The framework, rooted in…