Chemical escape rooms (ChEsRms) are educational games in which students use their brain, chemical knowledge, intuition, and a bit of luck to solve a mystery. At the Weizmann Institute, we have developed ChEsRms that are implemented by teachers in their classes. Since the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all the educational activities that took place in…

Completion of an escape room activity requires participants to work as a team to find hidden clues and solve challenging puzzles to escape before time expires. The use of escape rooms for active learning may produce a positive classroom environment by improving teamwork skills, encouraging engagement with course materials, fostering intellectual…

Computer security competitions have been playing a significant role in encouraging students to get into cybersecurity, as well as enhancing the cybersecurity education system. The level of difficulty of the computer security tasks could be intimidating for most students and learners, one of the reasons there has been a shortage of cybersecurity…

The purpose of this research was to compare the effectiveness of physical and virtual tangrams on preschool children's learning engagement and achievement. Children listened to an e-storybook narration and solved puzzles individually. The experimental group (N = 31) completed puzzles embedded in the e-storybook using virtual tangrams, while the…

The aim of this study is to determine whether Escape Rooms can be used as an active methodological approach for the purpose of teaching mathematics. The research adapted a quantitative approach via an experimental design. Two different study groups were established, the first of which comprised the control group who were taught using conventional…

Educational games, prevalent in contemporary settings, leverage game-based learning (GBL) to actively engage and enhance learners' knowledge and skill acquisition through captivating in-game learning activities. To assess the effectiveness of GBL, game-based assessment (GBA) has emerged. GBA employs gameplay for learners to attain educational…

This study consists of a 17-year (2006-2021) systematic literature review on the effective instructional strategies for developing Computational Thinking (CT) in primary school students (K-5). The aim of this paper is to identify instructional strategies that have been implemented and evaluated by means of a pre- and post-test, with the aim of…

The Three-Square Puzzle shows a remarkable relationship between three angles. What happens when the number of squares increases? This article explores that question and brings in Fibonacci and Lucas sequences.

We created the "3-dimensional synaptic puzzle" (3Dsp) as an educational resource for the physiology teaching of synaptic transmission (ST). In this study, we aimed to apply and evaluate the use of 3Dsp. For this, we divided 175 university students from public and private universities into two groups: (1) control (CT; students that were…

This teaching brief describes an engaging, in-class exercise that introduces genetic algorithms as well as advanced Excel functions and capabilities by modeling the familiar Sudoku puzzle. Student groups are first asked to manually solve a given puzzle and then translate that solution methodology to a spreadsheet model. This exercise can be used…

Students studying in beginning level foreign language classrooms often lack the opportunity to speak spontaneously (Kogan, 2023). Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a pedagogical approach to language instruction that advocates for the use of tasks to develop learners' second/foreign language (L2) abilities. Games can act as tasks that prepare…

The purpose of this study was to develop two Sudoku puzzles for undergraduate students which can be utilised in the context of introductory physical science courses in order to assist them to practice SI prefixes. For this reason, SI prefixes for decimal multiples and submultiples were addressed in two separate puzzles. To test the puzzles, a case…

In an effort to achieve stronger, curricular alignment and establish a more concrete relationship between literacy theory and instructional practice, curricular redesign within an undergraduate, literacy methods course commenced. With a clear rationale for why course redesign was necessary, a collective vision rooted with intention and focused on…

The computer game Foldit is currently widely used as a biology and biochemistry teaching aid. Herein, we introduce a new feature of Foldit called "custom contests" that allows educators to create puzzles that fit their curriculum. The effectiveness of the custom contests is demonstrated by the use of five distinct custom contests in an…

In three studies, we examined children's geography learning from a physical puzzle and an app designed to mimic the puzzle. In Study 1, 5- and 6-year-olds were taught Australia's states by an experimenter using a puzzle or were taught by an app. Children learned significantly more states from instruction with the puzzle than when they used the app…