Problem solving is one of the most essential aspects of human life. Every day, people engage in problem solving any time they attempt to resolve uncertain issues or questions. Of utmost importance, in order to resolve problems effectively, people must "build them" by interacting with situations. In other words, people must actively…

In this dissertation I will present my work in both the fields of spintronics and physics education research. In the first section, I present a method to account for spin pumping in spin torque ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR) measurements. A spin current can be generated via the spin Hall effect (SHE), which is typically transverse to the charge…

This study investigated relations between the distribution of practice problems in textbooks and students' learning of decimal arithmetic. In Study 1, we analyzed the distributions of decimal arithmetic practice problems that appeared in 3 leading math textbook series in the United States. Similar imbalances in the relative frequencies of decimal…

Participatory Learning (PL) integrates several learning approaches, engaging students throughout the entire assignment process for both online and face-to-face courses. Beyond simply providing a solution, students also craft a problem (problem-based learning), grade each other (peer assessment and feedback), evaluate themselves (self-assessment),…

Productive problem solving, concept construction, and sense making occur through the core process of abstraction. Although the capacity for domain-general abstraction is developed at a young age, the role of abstraction in increasingly complex and disciplinary environments, such as those encountered in undergraduate STEM education, is not well…

In most performing classes, such as dance or performing arts, students passively follow the scripts or demonstration provided by the teacher, and focus on imitating the acts and practicing repeatedly. Although researchers have begun trying out flipped learning to provide students with opportunities for self-learning and to increase the time for…

For years, scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and entrepreneurs have warned of social, environmental, and economic risks throughout society. Although researchers have explored the role of baccalaureate-granting institutions in addressing wicked problems of sustainability through multi-stakeholder initiatives, the role of "community…

I have created a general workflow that describes how students reason through non-trivial organic predict-the-product problems. This was accomplished through an iterative process that combined the experiences of instructors with holistic impressions of think-aloud interviews, incorporating feedback from both undergraduate focus groups and graduate…

This design case describes the implementation of the Human-centered Design process, developed by the world leading design firm IDEO and Stanford d. school. The process describes the technology integration onto a teaching credential program course at a university in Central California. It reports the thought process to adopting HCD in the course…

The research phase preluding a design capstone project is challenging for both students and instructors. In a situation where students are free to work on a topic of their choosing, a preset, generic research design is not suitable. Imposing a rigid framework would endanger the possibility of students truly examining and capturing the complexity…

Mathematical achievement in problem solving is not yet as expected. This is due to strategies that have not accommodated the situation of students. Adversity quotient is the state of the student who needs to get the attention of the teacher so that the learning strategy is expected to be appropriate. This research aims to describe the thinking…

Background: The International Performance Assessments of Learning (iPAL) project developed a framework for the construction of performance assessments for testing critical thinking, which proposes structuring them around a problem situation that sets an authentic (i.e., real-life-like) problem-solving task for the test-taker. Its critical thinking…

Office of basic education commission of Thailand firstly declared the indicator for computing science of the students in primary education and secondary education in 2018. The important of computing science is to develop the learners to solve the questions of computing science by using technology correctly. To gain the effective learning…

The present study explores students' understanding of calculus-based kinematics (henceforth, CBK), in which argumentation is taken as the sequence of the modes of fostering reasoning and problem-solving. The investigation stresses the importance of arguments students bring to the learning situation of CBK and recognizes the active construction of…

How should our students think about external forcing in differential equations setting, and how can we help them gain intuition? To address this question, we share a variety of problems and projects that explore the dynamics of the undamped forced spring-mass system. We provide a sequence of discovery-based exercises that foster physical and…