Visual thinking routines are principles based on several theories, approaches, and strategies. Such routines, which are usually used again and again in the classroom, promote thinking skills, call for collaboration and sharing of ideas, and above all, make thinking and learning visible. Visual thinking routines are carried out in different…

Communication is a multimodal phenomenon. The cognitive mechanisms supporting it are still understudied. We explored a natural dataset of academic lectures to determine how communication modalities are used and coordinated during the presentation of complex information. Using automated and semi-automated techniques, we extracted and analyzed, from…

Contribution: A semester-long project, geared towards a multidisciplinary group of undergraduate engineering students, to design and simulate a large-scale microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) 2-D optical scanner is presented. Background: MEMS component design and fabrication typically requires a cleanroom and costly high-vacuum equipment; these…

Before students learn Kirchhoff's rules, they are typically taught how to solve "combined series-parallel" circuits. The method presented in many textbooks begins by drawing a series of simplified circuits, replacing series and/or parallel elements with their equivalent resistances, eventually reducing the circuit to a voltage source and…

Heat maps have become ubiquitous in the media, yet students are rarely exposed to them and their inherent limitations and potential for misleading consumers. This article makes a case for exposing students to them in statistics instruction at the secondary and tertiary level.

This article examines whether implementing visualizations on an institutional repository webpage increases traffic on the site. Two methods for creating visualizations to attract faculty and student interest were employed. The first is a map displaying usage of institutional repository content from around the world. This map uses Tableau software…

We describe a process for construction and use of a "dashboard" for monitoring the quality of in-person nonformal education programs. We followed the process to develop a 4-H special interest (SPIN) club dashboard, but the steps are applicable to any education program that includes instruction over multiple sessions. The dashboard…

Incorporating visual methods and representations into research opens possibilities for deeper understandings of how individuals experience institutions of higher education. Written and spoken words and numerical data are necessary in research but may be insufficient in developing new understandings of the social world. Participant-generated visual…

The "Woodcock-Camarata Articulation Battery" (WCAB) is an empirically-based instrument intended to test the speech skills of children and adults age two up to ninety plus years. Its administration requires the examinee to look at pictures of predetermined common objects and repeat English words that are associated to the pictures.…

To provide effective fractions instruction, teachers need deep understanding of fraction concepts (i.e., content knowledge) and skill in using visual representations of fractions to support student learning (i.e., pedagogical content knowledge); yet, research indicates that many pre- and in-service teachers lack knowledge in both areas. The…

Purpose/Objectives: Fruit and vegetable (F/V) consumption among children continues to be lower than recommended. This study tested the effectiveness of nudges using fun facts about F/V on F/V consumption by elementary school students in grades 1 through 5. The study hypothesis is higher F/V consumption with nudges. Methods: The design was a…

"Doing economics" is an important theme of undergraduate economics programs. Capstone courses increasingly include instruction in "data literacy" and the STEM-related skills of quantitative and empirical methods. Because the professional discipline has moved in this direction and because of greater employer demand for these…

Textbooks, which form the staples of a teacher's set of resources, play a critical role in deciding what and how mathematics is taught in classrooms. However, textbooks do not always present concepts in ways that enhance understanding by students, nor are they always comprehensive in the treatment of a topic. In this exploratory study, we analyse…

Excluded-volume interactions are ubiquitous to modeling the average size of polymers in solution. This paper shows how simulations can be used by students to explore the emergence of mathematical scaling relations from excluded-volume interactions. Simulations provide robust visual representations of the system, and can be used to investigate a…

Despite the last 40 years of research showing that computer-aided diagramming tools improve student learning, very little research reveals the cognitive processes that explain why and how diagramming tools and specific features of the tools affect learning. This study developed a tool that graduate students used to diagram and analyze arguments as…