Teaching with analogies is an important pedagogy that helps learners construct abstract conceptions through reasoning with something familiar. Heat concepts were chosen for this study because they have an intangible nature and involve complex mechanisms that often challenge school-aged learners. Learning this kind of complex concept with analogies…

The fact that the mathematics course is abstract, that it is not possible to associate it with daily life, and that it is impossible to concretize abstract expressions causes a prejudice against the this course and leads to a decrease in the academic achievements of students. It is seen that throughout history, various studies have been carried…

Although reasoning, reflective practice, and evidence-based practice are essential professional skills for occupational therapy students, there is not a clear understanding of how these skills are taught. We used Delphi methodology to explore how occupational therapy educators conceptualize best-practices for facilitating the development of…

We propose the first steps towards a rigorous analysis of the effectiveness of an emerging pedagogy, Computational Thinking. We found that two aspects of the pedagogy have a positive effect with regard to enhancing two cognitive processes, namely sequential thinking and in abstract thinking. Our data was gathered experimentally with a cohort of…

Visualisation has been a critical means of scientific reasoning, knowledge development, and communication. In science classrooms, visualisation plays significant roles for teaching and learning. To better understand the landscape of the existing research on visualisation for supporting student science learning in K to 12 classroom contexts, we…

Continuing our critique of the classical derivation of the formula for the area of a disk, we focus on the limiting processes in geometry. Evidence suggests that intuitive approaches in arguing about infinity, when geometric configurations are involved, are inadequate, and could easily lead to erroneous conclusions. We expose weaknesses and…

Many education researchers have advocated grounding abstract mathematical and scientific concepts in students' lived experiences, environmental interactions, and perceptions. This dissertation explores the causal effects of various grounding strategies in instructional settings, specifically on the topic of statistical sampling. The first chapter…

Research in Organic Chemistry education has revealed students' challenges in mechanistic reasoning. When solving mechanistic tasks, students tend to focus on explicit surface features, apply fragmented conceptual knowledge, rely on rote-memorization and, hence, often struggle to build well-grounded causal explanations. When taking a resource…

This paper describes the design of an instrument to assess secondary school students' proficiency in structure-property reasoning (SPR). Design criteria for the instrument required that it should be based on a comprehensive model for structure-property reasoning, assess both reproductive and productive use of structure-property reasoning, be…

An important goal in school algebra is to help students notice the covariational nature of functional relationships, how the values of variables change in relation to each other. This study explored 102 Year 7 (12 to 13-year-old) students' covariational reasoning with their constructed graphs for figural growing patterns they had generalised. A…

The need for data literacy is an increasingly pressing priority in society, but most of the work in data-centred education has focused on developing skills at the middle school, secondary, and post-secondary levels, with little attention on the potential for engaging elementary-aged students in reasoning with and about data. This paper reports…

Mathematics education often grapples with the challenge of teaching abstract mathematical concepts, particularly those existing in 3D space. Visualizing, manipulating, and comprehending these abstract objects can be a formidable task for learners. While 3D printing technology has found applications in various fields, its utilization in mathematics…

This study investigates Contemporary Mathematical Instruction Competence (CMIC) using the PISA 2022 dataset. The research aims to identify the underlying dimensions of CMIC and assess their consistency across different cultural contexts. Variables were selected from teacher surveys in PISA 2022, focusing on mathematical reasoning, cognitive…

Chemistry is considered a difficult subject by most students. Its difficulty lies in Chemistry's complex and abstract nature. This highly abstract nature requires constant interplay and coordination between the macroscopic, particulate, and symbolic representations. Experts can successfully navigate the various representations without overloading…

BrainPOP Science is a research-based program that has been shown to be effective in improving and quickly developing students' scientific reasoning skills. This white paper presents a comprehensive case study conducted in school districts in the Southeastern United States. BrainPOP Science is one of the leading supplemental middle school programs.…