Can You Build It? is an engaging Improve It! task that asks children to construct 3D shapes based on 2D depictions. Students' initial 3D creations often need revision, and as they build and re-build, they develop spatial relationships. This task was implemented in a first-grade class, connected to composing 3D geometric shapes to address the…

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant switch to remote learning enabled a natural experiment to observe and compare the self-regulation strategies used by elementary students in hypermedia environments. Specifically, the same participants (N = 48, M[subscript age] = 10.75) were observed in two learning contexts: a traditional classroom with…

The conception of functions, defined as the relationship between magnitudes or sets of ordered pairs, varies among students depending on the contextualization of the concept within the curriculum, notably in school textbooks. This investigation endeavors to scrutinize the approach taken by Indonesian textbooks in introducing the function concept…

The authors wondered if there was a way to support their reluctant Grades 4, 5, and 6 students in contributing their starting points and strategies and advancing their collective knowledge. They wanted to ensure that the students had the space to develop and take ownership of the strategies they produced through a visual representation of ideas…

Internationally, teaching assistants (TA) support children with special needs and/or disabilities as they complete classroom tasks; meanwhile, teachers manage whole-class instruction. Given the limited training for TAs, Bosanquet et al. (2020) developed an influential framework promoting TA effectiveness. Their 'scaffolding framework' encourages…

Recent research has highlighted the role of functional relationships in introducing elementary school students to algebraic thinking. This functional approach is here considered to study essential components of algebraic thinking such as generalization and its representation, as well as the strategies used by students and their connection with…

Previous research has highlighted the importance of social relationships in mathematical group work while working on modelling activities. This study analyses the interaction of sixth-grade students in Primary Education (11 to 12 years old) carrying out a modelling task in groups with a Fermi problem used as the modelling activity. The focus of…

The present study aimed to examine children's and adults' performance and strategies in volume estimations. Three tasks were designed and presented to 40 adults and 40 6th grade children who were asked to estimate: (a) the number of unit measures (bricks/rice spoons) that may be put in a container, (b) the quantity of bricks/rice, between two…

Successful adoption of proven effective practice strategies such as distributed practice may contribute to much-needed improvement in mathematics performance. However, it is not yet fully understood if distributed practice is beneficial for long-term retention of complex procedural knowledge and, if so, for which initial practice performance level…

This study examines how task instruction and task appraisals predict engagement and disaffection in classroom moments. We assessed 2,560 momentary survey responses from 124 Finnish 7th grade students using a within-person analytical approach. The results showed that students were more engaged during active instruction and when they had choice in…

Cognitive interviews play an important role in articulating the intended construct of educational assessments. This paper describes the iterative development of protocols for cognitive interviews with kindergarten through second-grade children to understand how their spatial reasoning skill development aligns with intended constructs. We describe…

Textbooks are one of the main resources for teaching and learning mathematics. This study examines the presentation of angle topics in 4th-grade mathematics textbooks in Indonesia and Singapore. The analysis focused on the general characteristics of the textbook and the nature of the mathematical tasks presented. The results showed that Indonesian…

In this study, we investigated how secondary students interpret algebraic expressions that contain literal symbols to stand for variables. We hypothesized that the natural number bias (i.e., the tendency to over-rely on knowledge and experiences based on natural numbers) would affect students to think that the literal symbols stand for natural…

In recent years, an increasing number of studies have examined the association between mathematical abilities and executive functions (EFs). However, it remains unknown via which mechanisms' mathematical performance is associated with EFs. The current study examined the associations of overall task proficiency, strategy selection, and strategy…

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of the Predict-Explain-Observe-Discuss-Explain (PEODE)-based laboratory on enhancing the verbal and figural creativity of gifted students. The quasi-experimental research design utilised a pre- and post-test approach with a non-equivalent control group, consisting of 60 sixth-grade gifted students.…