Structural engineering can be a rich and exciting context for exploring and learning about the properties of materials. Even a structure as commonplace as a house requires careful consideration of important properties such as strength, stability, and insulation. As a former engineer and current elementary science teacher educator, the author has…

Today, more than ever before, we must all be able to think creatively, manage change, and solve complex, open-ended problems. Education today is different in its structure and practice than it was in any previous generation, not just because of the impact of technology and the Internet, but also because, across the lifespan, every person studies,…

The task-centered instructional strategy (Merrill, 2009) was designed specifically for the purpose of teaching complex problem-solving skills and emphasizes teaching in the context of a concrete real world task. Nevertheless, unlike other problem-centered instructional methods (e.g., constructivism) the task-centered instructional strategy is a…

In the current educational climate of IDEA 2004 and No Child Left Behind, teachers are required to find methods to give all students, including students with mild intellectual disability, access to the general education curriculum. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of instruction integrating the…

Against the backdrop of half a century of research in mathematics problem solving, Polya's last stage is especially conspicuous--by the scarcity of research on it! Much of the research focused on the first three stages (J.M. Francisco and C.A. Maher, "Conditions for promoting reasoning in problem solving: Insights from a longitudinal…

This exploratory qualitative investigation examined the nature of 7 secondary school students who are highly artistic to link visual arts programs that best accommodate their learning needs. Instrumentation for data collection included 1 questionnaire, 3 in-depth semistructured one-on-one interviews, artwork documents, observations, and field…

The author is a product of school-based agricultural education. In a way, this distinguished lecture could also be called a tribute to his high school ag teacher, John Stimpert. Mr. Stimpert was a true professional and an excellent teacher. He changed and he changed the program with the changing school and community. The more the author became…

This article examines the bicycle as not simply a means of transportation or as an exercise device, but rather as a vehicle for teambuilding and problem solving activities within a physical education curriculum. The activities described in this article focus on bike-centered initiatives that foster creative problem solving. They have universal…

Teaching through Problem Solving (TtPS) is an effective way to teach mathematics "for" understanding. It also provides students with a way to learn mathematics "with" understanding. In this article, the authors present a definition of what it means to teach through problem solving. They also describe a professional development vignette that…

Previous studies have reported that students employed different problem solving approaches when presented with the same task structured with different representations. In this study, we explored and compared students' strategies as they attempted tasks from two topical areas, kinematics and work. Our participants were 19 engineering students…

The Virtual Genetics Lab II (VGLII) is an improved version of the highly successful genetics simulation software, the Virtual Genetics Lab (VGL). The software allows students to use the techniques of genetic analysis to design crosses and interpret data to solve realistic genetics problems involving a hypothetical diploid insect. This is a brief…

There is a reciprocal relationship between mathematics and reading cognition. Metacognitive training within reading-enhanced problem solving should facilitate students developing an awareness of what good readers do when reading for meaning in solving mathematical problems enabling them to apply these strategies. The constructs for each cognitive…

The present study examined the efficacy of two different approaches to teaching designed to facilitate children's learning about science concepts and vocabulary related to objects' floating and sinking and scientific problem-solving skills: responsive teaching (RT) and the combination of responsive teaching and explicit instruction (RT + EI).…

The manual gestures that hearing children produce when explaining their answers to math problems predict whether they will profit from instruction in those problems. We ask here whether gesture plays a similar role in deaf children, whose primary communication system is in the manual modality. Forty ASL-signing deaf children explained their…

This article presents a design experiment in which we explore new structures for classroom collaboration supported by a classroom network of handheld graphing calculators. We describe a design for small group investigations of linear functions and present findings from its implementation in three high school algebra classrooms. Our coding of the…