Embodied views of cognition propose that concepts are grounded in sensorimotor experience. Diverse aspects of sensorimotor experience, like action and context information, could play a key role in the formation and processing of manipulable object concepts. Specifically, contextual information could help to link specific actions experienced with…

This qualitative study examined how three teachers of upper elementary students used science vocabulary in their lessons. The data revealed that teachers used vocabulary to label science phenomena and interpret scientific concepts for students. The practice of labeling was used more extensively than interpreting. Teachers did not help their…

Nondeterminism is a fundamental concept in computer science that appears in various contexts such as automata theory, algorithms and concurrent computation. We present a taxonomy of the different ways that nondeterminism can be defined and used; the categories of the taxonomy are domain, nature, implementation, consistency, execution and…

This paper sets out to show that the concept of literacy is evolving and its conventional definition, "reading and writing," is no longer adequate. Literacy is now subjected to constant redefinition to reflect criteria for social, political, religious, and economic relevance and expectations. The definition must be reframed to capture the…

Recent research has indicated that conceptual development in a specific domain may not be independent of the way it is mapped linguistically. We explore this claim in the semantic domain of evidentiality by considering various sets of data from Turkish-speaking children between one and a half to six years. We present evidence for (1) the…

The current study evaluated the relative roles of conceptual knowledge and executive control on the development of "categorical flexibility," the ability to switch between simultaneously available but conflicting categorical representations of an object. Experiment 1 assessed conceptual knowledge and executive control together; Experiment 2…

This article looks at some of the conceptual difficulties that students have in a linear algebra course. An overview of previous research in this area is given, and the various theories that have been espoused regarding the reasons that students find linear algebra so difficult are discussed. Student responses to two questions testing the ability…

Evidence exists that children's understanding can be facilitated through collaborative group work with peers, but little is known about the underlying processes. When processes are discussed, they are typically assumed to involve the assimilation of superior ideas that are constructed jointly. However, the assimilation of joint constructions…

With our conceptualization of Harre and van Langenhove's (1999) positioning theory, we draw attention to immanent experience and read transcendent discursive practices through the moment of interaction. We use a series of spatial images as metaphors to analyze the way positioning is conceptualized in current mathematics education literature and…

In recent times there has been an enormous interest in Vygotsky's writing on conceptual development, particularly his insights on the differences between everyday and scientific thinking. In drawing upon cultural-historical theory, this paper seeks to examine the relations between everyday concepts and scientific concepts within playful contexts,…

Although preservice elementary school teachers (PSTs) lack the understanding of multidigit whole numbers necessary to teach in ways that empower students mathematically, little is known about their conceptions of multidigit whole numbers. The extensive research on children's understanding of multidigit whole numbers is used to explicate PSTs'…

This research incorporated an ecological approach to examine American and Northern Irish children's understanding of the 2003 war in Iraq and the sources of information from which they acquired that understanding. Responses to interviews indicated that the children from the two countries had some common conceptions of and sources of information…

Two studies (N = 456) compared the development of concepts of animal species and human gender, using a switched-at-birth reasoning task. Younger children (5- and 6-year-olds) treated animal species and human gender as equivalent; they made similar levels of category-based inferences and endorsed similar explanations for development in these 2…

Classroom assessment techniques have been advocated for use in the college classroom for over 20 years. The authors of this paper formed a new teaching technique, "the ticket to retention" ("TtR"), one that changes classroom assessment techniques so that the emphasis is on student retention of concepts. This technique combines…

In the last three decades, the constructivist approach has been the dominant ideology in the field of educational research. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of constructivist science teaching on the students' understanding about matter, and to compare the effectiveness of a constructivist approach over traditional teaching methods.…