This article describes "Verse Chronograms" in the Cabrera Portrait (1750) of Sor Juana. The author explains the meaning of three hard-to-see sets of verses inscribed on the canvas, that are a kind of text known as a chronogram, a literary puzzle in which the numerical values of letters that correspond to Roman numerals are added up so…

This article presents an original puzzle that supports students' development of visual thinking and geometry ideas based on the Van Hiele levels of geometric thought. The "Triangle Puzzle" is one of many tools teachers can use to guide students' learning of geometry. The Van Hiele's theory provides a way to assess and support this…

When given the opportunity to play with mathematical materials and ideas, children demonstrate their mathematical understanding in innovative ways. The open-ended nature of the "Pattern Blocks" activity provides agency for children to decide how to approach the tasks, ways to differentiate beyond more common pattern-block puzzle choices,…

The study aimed to examine the difference between cheating and persistence during a persistence task to advance persistence measurement. Through a within-subject design (N = 78, mean age: 5.2 years), two different versions of the puzzle box task were administered. The original puzzle box task was administered in condition I (i.e., open version).…

Play has been discussed by mathematicians and mathematics educators as essential to mathematical progress and has been widely acknowledged to have a role in learning. Yet, play is rarely acknowledged, leveraged, or studied for mathematics learners beyond early childhood. Moreover, there are theoretical and empirical challenges with designing for…

Educational escape rooms (ER) are an instructional activity designed to incorporate many elements of recreational ERs, which have become popular in recent years. There are many reasons to consider incorporating educational ERs into K-12 math instruction or after-school programs/camps. First, they are highly motivating for students because they…

The present pilot study aimed to develop, implement, and evaluate an escape room game for oncologic emergencies. This quasi-experimental pilot study was developed and evaluated by teachers for an oncology nursing course. A total of 76 nursing students ?participated in the study. After completing the game, students were given access to the data…

Escape the Math Room is a fun, interactive, sequence of puzzles designed to encourage mathematical collaboration, team work, and ingenuity. Using advanced mathematical topics in an accessible way, Escape the Math Room appropriately challenges students ranging from high school to advanced undergraduate. The activity can be adjusted by adding or…

The study was conducted to ascertain if learning styles and corresponding teaching methods are factors that influence effective learning. The study employed a non-equivalent planned variation quasi-experimental design. The study's sample comprised 362 chemistry students from six senior high schools in Delta State. The students were selected using…

Thirty-seven third graders and thirty-two first graders engaged in solving a tangram puzzle in the shape of a fox. They had five minutes to solve the puzzle, and after this time, they received guidance on the particular piece they had difficulties with. Through the lenses of navigating flexible abstraction, reinterpretation, combinations, and…

Current views on the teaching of differential equations (DEs) are shifting towards the use of graphical and numerical methods. Motivated by recent research suggesting that puzzle-based learning (PzBL) can improve the teaching and learning of STEM subjects and by the lack of relevant studies for DEs, we designed two tasks--sophism and paradox--to…

Background and Context: Block-based programming is a popular approach to teaching introductory programming. Block-based programming often works in the context of microworlds, where students solve specific puzzles. It is used, for example, within the Hour of Code event, which targets millions of students. Objective: To identify design guidelines…

The author examines the therapeutic value of puzzles for adults during two major crises in the United States, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s. Each period saw a huge surge in jigsaw puzzling throughout the country, she finds, and in both cases people turned to home-based leisure activities, either for…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of perplexity in young players' experiences within an educational videogame and how reflective thinking can help them to get out of perplexing scenarios. Design/methodology/approach: We used a constructivist grounded theory approach and the lenses of Dewey's conceptualization of…

There is a growing perception that computational thinking can be developed in unplugged environments. A recent trend among these unplugged approaches is the use of tabletop games. While there are many commercial tabletop games on the market that are promoted as teaching computer science and/or computational skills, little is known about how these…