There has been much attention given to the use of technology in education; mostly concentrating on physical artifacts of technology to facilitate teaching delivery but little mentioning technology as a cultural resource to organize the learning environment promoting social interaction among students and between teacher and students. This paper…

Research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) education suggests development of STEM competency requires effective learning environments, including the use of varied representations (e.g., visual, symbolic) and opportunities for students to make connections among them. Although such practices have been advocated in the teaching…

The United States' Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) elevate engineering design to the same stature as scientific inquiry, calling on science teachers to engage students in engineering practices to solve real-world problems. In response, researchers and curriculum developers designed and studied Virtual Engineering Internships (VEIs) to…

Developing students' strengths while teaching the content required by national and state standards in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is challenging for classroom teachers. In the Cultivating Diverse Talent in STEM (CDTIS) project, the assessment results found in strength-based reports gave teachers the tools needed to…

This study aimed to investigate the effect of instruction based on metacognitive strategies on geometrical problem-solving performance of mathematics preservice teachers. Geometrical problem-solving tests developed by the researchers were applied as pre-test and post-test before and after the experimental instruction. Preservice teachers predicted…

We share ideas for preparing for and enacting high-cognitive demand tasks in ways that support students in articulating and justifying their ideas. We offer strategies for developing and posing several types of purposeful questions: (1) eliciting thinking, (2) generating ideas, (3) clarifying explanations, and (4) justifying claims.

Background: Math is a difficult subject with which many upper middle-school students struggle. In addition to knowledge, skills, and motivation, effective learning strategies play an important role in learning math. Aims: This study aimed to examine the effects of comprehension-oriented learning strategies (perceptual and abstract grouping of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency with which students use math word problem strategies during and after schema-based instruction. It examines the extent to which students increase their ability to correctly solve word problems. It compares students' attitudes toward mathematics problem solving before and after schema-based…

The learning process in architecture at Universidad Simon Bolivar is based on confronting students with practical or theoretical situations to let them acquire knowledge about the discipline. The core of this process is on design studio courses, and from the early stages of the program they have to discover for themselves the role of architecture…

Software is a vital resource for modern life. For software to be successful, programming skills are of the utmost importance. These skills are used both by programmers and also by systems analysts and designers during the phases of software development. Therefore, both technical and non-technical stakeholders within the software development…

The purpose of the current study was to investigate students' overall learning process during the implementation of educational escape-the-room games (EERGs) in classrooms. This study adopted a two-stage case-study methodology, namely single-case and multi-case designs. In the first stage, a well-designed EERG for a Chinese language class was…

Despite the growing body of literature emphasizing the specialized literacy practices within the disciplines, the literature concerning how to prepare preservice teachers for disciplinary literacy instruction is less clear. In this article, we present a mentorship model for content area teacher preparation that Steve (first author) developed and…

Students must actively engage in problem solving to effectively learn in introductory physics courses. However, students often get stuck and are not able to make progress when solving problems outside of their current ability, particularly when one-on-one tutoring and instructor office hours are a limited resource. One effective technique consists…

Gifted adolescents may identify as "gamers" who create avatars to navigate video games and cell phone apps. Avatars provide a unique venue through which gifted teens can explore the issues of self and identity in a critical time of their development. The purpose of this article is to (a) provide an overview of what avatars are, (b)…

Many studies have shown that visual representations can enhance student understanding of STEM concepts. However, prior research suggests that visual representations alone are not necessarily effective across a broad range of students. To address this problem, we created a novel, scaffolded form of diagrammatic self-explanation in which students…