Productive problem solving, concept construction, and sense making occur through the core process of abstraction. Although the capacity for domain-general abstraction is developed at a young age, the role of abstraction in increasingly complex and disciplinary environments, such as those encountered in undergraduate STEM education, is not well…

Intuition is one of the main factors that drive our everyday decision-making which happens quickly and unconsciously. Individuals often rely on the use of intuition to solve either simple or complex problems. The purpose of this research study is to further break down an individual's thinking processes by understanding how different groups of…

The transition from arithmetic to algebra in middle school can be critical for students having persistent difficulties in mathematics. The leading perception in our project is that holistic relational thinking is an effective problem-solving tool in both arithmetic and algebra. We worked in collaboration with two teachers of special classes to…

This study explores the relationship between the dispositions toward research that writing teachers convey through their assignments and those that their students express in their reflective writing. We applied the term "problem-exploring" to a set of dispositions described by the ACRL Framework and coded each clause of instructor…

Three studies examine a novel pathway by which the perseverance component of the personality trait "grit" might predict college students' behavioral persistence when solving challenging math problems. Specifically, we focus on the intervening role of what we refer to as "math-specific self-perceptions of perseverance," which…

This paper seeks to evaluate learning based on the competency approach, taking a didactic experience to evaluate a possible improvement in the ability to solve problems and for autonomous learning in general. For the didactic development, the theme "gases" was taken, which is generally enunciated: Corpuscular kinetic theory of matter;…

Productive struggle is crucial to students' mathematics learning. However, it has proven difficult for teachers to sustain struggle when it is productive or make it so when it is not. Studies show that teachers may offer students support when their struggles are productive or even refrain from offering support when students' struggles are…

This study explores the integration of game play into an inclusive, hands-on computing project in Calculus class. The project is focused on designing and analyzing priority switches for applications competing for computational resources on embedded devices such as smart watches and tablets. By engaging students in real-world problem-solving…

Project-based learning (PBL) aims to foster students' problem-solving ability and collaboration by engaging them in completing a project in teams. Researchers have indicated the importance of guiding students to make comparisons and reflection during the process of project-based learning. Therefore, the present research proposed a peer…

The objective of this research was to observe any correlation between the implementation of social-emotional learning in the classroom and the social behaviors exhibited by students. Social-emotional programs, such as Responsive Classroom, have been observed to demonstrate positive effects on students' academic, behavioral, and social-emotional…

This article provides an exploratory case study of place-based pedagogy developed in partnership with Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR) at Guilford College. ECAR is the first initiative of its kind to mobilize college and university campus resources to provide housing and other forms of assistance to refugees seeking resettlement in the institution's…

A responsible citizen is someone who understands their role in the community and attempts to make a positive impact. Service-learning is one way to encourage responsible citizenship by asking students to engage with and reflect on their communities. This study explores student perceptions toward civic engagement in an undergraduate course focused…

Our study investigates the effect of hybrid courses and reading scientific articles on scientific literacy of biomedical engineering students. Participants included about 100 undergraduate and graduate students who participated in one or two hybrid courses. Our research goal was to study the effect of reading scientific articles and participating…

Research in both education and in entrepreneurship has shown that certain attitudes, skills, and behaviors are helpful in working through problems to achieve success (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Dino, 2015; Duckworth et al, 2007; Dweck, 2009; MacCann et al., 2012; Metcalfe & Shumamura,1994; West et al., 2016). Fortunately, many of these attitudes,…

This study assesses the extent to which a medium-term international service learning (ISL) project led by a Canadian university in partnership with sub-Saharan African universities achieves five objectives with respect to the interns: increasing local and global community engagement, activating leaders, developing global citizens, personal and…