This research, conducted between 2020 and 2024 in Romania, investigates the challenges and strategies related to teaching and solving mathematical word problems, based on insights from 163 teachers of grades 0 to 8. The study found that students often experience anxiety when solving word problems, especially during exams, due to difficulties with…

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…

This paper presents a teaching experiment with preschoolers, considering games as means for presenting problem-based situations and focusing on the development of game design in connection to problem posing skills. The study was conducted in a focus group of eighteen 5-6-year-old students who participated in game design sessions, compared to a…

This case study was undertaken to characterise the interventions made by a kindergarten teacher during a multiplicative structure problem-solving lesson. The study findings show that when she realised the children were having difficulty, she provided assistance to enable them to find the right answer. When the children gave an incorrect response,…

In recent years, there has been a growing concern in science education on the enhancement of preschoolers' knowledge and motivation for concepts by implementing efficient teaching methods. This study explored the development and effectiveness of the E-sky Module in increasing the development of preschoolers in Project-based Learning (PBL)…

This theoretical article examines the crucial role of play-based learning (PBL) in enhancing the mathematical skills of children in the Early Childhood Phase, referred to as Foundation Phase (Grade R-3) learners, within a South African context. The article argues that the traditional approach to teaching early childhood mathematics, where teachers…

This paper examines constructive play in the context of Waldorf and normative kindergartens in Israel. In conceptualizing the output of children's construction, the current research relies upon the fields of problem-solving and technological thinking, using the design process model. The research results were based on a sample of 39 construction…

Preschool teachers' questioning is an important part of the teaching and learning process as questions can drive children's thinking (Nappi 2017). As one of the most common pedagogical tasks in preschool, storytelling has the potential to bring the world to the classroom using imagined or real stories. However, to date, there is limited knowledge…

Researchers have identified effective instructional strategies for teaching peer imitation, including embedded classroom-based interventions. However, there is a dearth of strategies that have been effective for teaching generalization of imitation skills to novel contexts. Building on previous research, we examined the use of progressive time…

With a change in access to information and a rising social and political consciousness for young people, elementary schools must start to think more about their role in shaping kids' understanding of social issues. While researchers certainly have not agreed upon a single definition of social justice education, Bell (2016) defines its aim as…

This meta-analysis study aimed to comprehensively examine the effect size of STEM practices on the development of students' problem-solving skills. By combining the results of 25 individual studies, the researchers can gain a holistic understanding of the overall impact of STEM approaches. Consequently, these studies were categorized according to…

Preschool environments offer an abundance of opportunities for exploring the physical world where children can learn "engineering concepts" and "principles" (theories or laws). Yet how teachers design motivating conditions for engineering thinking has not been fully investigated. The study reported in this paper examined how…

This meta-analysis study aimed to comprehensively examine the effect size of STEM practices on the development of students' problem-solving skills. By combining the results of 25 individual studies, the researchers can gain a holistic understanding of the overall impact of STEM approaches. Consequently, these studies were categorized according to…

Education systems around the world, faces the major challenge of including all children in schools. Differentiated instruction (DI) is proposed as a pedagogical approach that support social, emotional and academic success for all students in the context of heterogeneous classrooms. Although, recent research draws the attention to the inconsistent…

When thinking of early childhood STEM, images of active, play-based design challenges, experiences with robotics/coding, or hands-on experiences with open-ended materials (e.g., balls, ramps, loose parts) often come to mind. While these are certainly images that align with developmentally appropriate early childhood STEM practices, some of the…