There is a growing presence of technology in the daily lives of elementary school students, with a recent exponential rise due to the constraints of remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to understand how the education system can contribute to helping students develop the required skills for technological careers, without…

Science and engineering students in the second semester of a calculus-based physics sequence typically study and measure the on-axis magnetic field for a multiple, circular turn coil. There are four benefits to this approach: 1) an analytical solution is easily obtained, 2) the coil is easily constructed using tightly wound, high-gauge wire where…

Computational thinking (CT) is a thought process composed of computer science ideas and skills that can be applied to solve problems and better understand the world around us. With the increase in technology and computing, STEM disciplines are becoming interwoven with computing. In order to better prepare students for STEM careers, computational…

The use of approximations in solving problems in sciences can be vital for students. Order of magnitude estimation also helps with physical understanding of the quantities involved in a calculation. For example, in the first exam in a first-year class in chemistry the student must find the mass in grams of an atom; a couple of students will…

Learning the meaning of number words is a lengthy and error-prone process. In this review, we highlight outstanding issues related to current accounts of children's acquisition of symbolic number knowledge. We maintain that, despite the ability to identify and label small numerical quantities, children do not understand initially that number words…

Student immigrant generation can be estimated using an alternative method when data to calculate a traditional indicator are not available. An alternative method to determine immigrant generation may be helpful to school districts as they support and plan services for immigrant students and their families. Traditionally, child and parent…

Florida's high school graduation rate is based on the percentage of students who graduated with a standard diploma within four years of their first full year of enrollment in ninth grade in the state. However, adjustments are made to this cohort over time to: (1) add incoming transfer students based on their grade level and year of entry; (2)…

In this paper, we provide an introduction to the factored regression framework. This modeling framework applies the rules of probability to break up or "factor" a complex joint distribution into a product of conditional regression models. Using this framework, we can easily specify the complex multivariate models that missing data…

The ability to efficiently optimize or re-optimize an algorithm for high performance on a particular processor architecture is crucial in a wide spectrum of engineering and scientific applications. To help bridge the gap between fully automated optimization, which does not reliably produce optimal code, and fully manual optimization, which is…

With the advent of physiological computing systems, new avenues are emerging for the field of learning analytics related to the potential integration of physiological data. To this end, we developed a physiological computing infrastructure to collect physiological data, surveys, and browsing behavior data to capture students' learning journey in…

Computing has become essential in modern-day problem-solving, making computational literacy necessary for practicing scientists and engineers. However, K-12 science education has not reflected this computational shift. Integrating computational thinking (CT) into core science courses is an avenue that can build computational literacies in all…

As a dynamic and multifaceted construct, computational thinking (CT) has proven to be challenging to conceptualize and assess, which impedes the development of a workable ontology framework. To address this issue, the current article describes a novel approach towards understanding the ontological aspects of CT by using text mining and…

Back-of-the-envelope (BOTE) calculations require the use of estimations and approximations. They are used by expert physicists to simplify complex problems to obtain quick and approximate solutions. Though BOTE calculations are routine for experts in physics, they are not well defined in academic literature. In this study we interviewed 9…

Computational thinking (CT) skills are critical for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, thus drawing increasing attention in STEM education. More curricula and assessments, however, are needed to cultivate and measure CT for different learning goals. Maker activities have the potential to improve student CT, but…

Integrating computational thinking into K-12 Education has been a widely explored topic in recent years. Particularly, effective assessment of computational thinking can support the understanding of how learners develop computational concepts and practices. Aiming to help advance research on this topic, we propose a data-driven approach to assess…