Various types of visuals are included in social studies textbooks such as pictures, illustrations, maps, and photographs as they are considered powerful learning aids. Therefore, it is important to investigate how visuals in social studies textbooks are perceived by the students. Thus, the first purpose of this paper is to discuss how students…

Background: Given the scarce but promising practice of educational interventions based on the creation of teaching materials by students, Bikos Project has been designed. Purpose: This article presents and assesses Bikos Project. Pairs of students cooperatively create video tutorials from questions that arise from their scientific curiosity. Four…

Understanding mechanisms underpinning formation of convection currents is pivotal for developing explanations of plate tectonics when teaching Geoscience topics. While student generated diagrams explaining convection currents may be used to evaluate student conceptual understanding and alternative conceptions in this topic, students may need…

Research in STEM education has focussed on integrated STEM projects that combine knowledge and skills across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These integrated STEM projects are typically designed by teachers or researchers addressing a limited range of topics that do not always cater well to the diversity of interest among…

Audiobooks have been growing in popularity over the last decade. Although researchers have increasingly recognised the value of audiobooks as rich multimodal texts that support literacy engagement in classrooms, there have been few detailed pictures of classroom practice related to audiobooks. In this practitioner narrative, a secondary English…

The authors document work in a fifth-grade classroom investigating informational texts. Students investigated a range of informational texts and their potential forms. In the spirit of challenging a given curriculum and conventional understandings of informational texts, texts in the Science Comics series were invited into this learning space.…

This study examined student learning outcomes from a middle school computer science (CS) curriculum developed through a researcher and practitioner partnership (RPP) project. The curriculum is based on students creating mobile apps that serve community and social good. We collected two sets of data from 294 students in three urban districts: (1)…

In this article, the authors focus on a one-week research project examining Frederick Douglass's civic actions to challenge racial discrimination African Americans faced before and after the U.S. Civil War. Our one-week research project was implemented at a free public charter school in amid-sized Southern city. Our project connects to the…

Building on the long-standing tradition of challenging oppression and questioning whose interests are being served in the field of language education, we report on a study that involved a group of U.S.-based graduate students who collaborated with a ninth-grade English teacher in Nepal. The study comes out of a larger project that sought to…

Decision-making and design in uncertain situations in which information is limited and goals are ambitious or conflicting are a part of common practices of engineers. Such abilities in engineering practices are important to develop for all students from elementary school through college and graduate school. An important aspect of decision-making…

In view of contribution-based pedagogy and observational learning theory, students' perceived uses, preferences, usage, and selection considerations with regard to citing peers' work were examined in an online learning environment targeting student-constructed tests. Data were collected from 84 fifth-grade students who participated in online…

This is a research study of design and engineering classes that use a problem-based learning (PBL) approach in digital fabrication makerspaces in two middle schools. In these studies, teachers employ a PBL approach and provide an ill-structured problem scenario to facilitate design and engineering lessons in the FabLab (fabrication laboratory).…

Simplifying symbolic expressions is usually perceived in middle school algebra as an algorithmic activity, achieved by performing sequences of short drill-and-practice tasks, which have little to do with conceptual learning or with creative mathematical thinking. The aim of this study is to explore possible ways by which ninth-grade students can…

The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the extended use of student-designed games. 207 students (grades: eight, nine, eleven) from one school participated. They were randomly divided in Experimental (student-designed games) and Equivalent group (traditional instruction). Both experienced the same learning units (two, 12 sessions) over the…

In an introductory middle grades course, teacher candidates synthesize and apply the concepts from key middle level documents through their coursework. Along with a popular middle grades text (Brown & Knowles, 2014), teacher candidates read "This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents" (National Middle School Association,…