Playing mathematical games enables middle school students to engage their minds while discovering and using meaningful strategies. Blokus[R] is one such game. While playing, students exercise spatial awareness, analyze attributes of two-dimensional shapes, compare patterns, and use logic--all of which encompass NCTM's Content Standards. Students…

The emergence of Web 2.0 and some of its ascendant tools such as blogs and wikis have the potential to dramatically change education, both in how we conceptualize and operationalize processes and strategies. We argue in this paper that it is a change that has been over a century in coming. The promise of the Web 2.0 is similar to ideas proposed by…

Web searching for complex information requires to appropriately evaluating diverse sources of information. Information science studies identified different criteria applied by searchers to evaluate Web information. However, the explicit evaluation instructions used in these studies might have resulted in a distortion of spontaneous evaluation…

In mathematics education, a vast amount of research has shown that students of different ages have a strong tendency to apply linear or proportional models anywhere, even in situations where they are not applicable. For example, in geometry it is known that many students believe that if the sides of a figure are doubled, the area is doubled too.…

What's democracy got to do with teaching? To answer this question, the author recollects the personal experiences through which she came to understand the connections between democracy and teaching. Sustaining democracy requires its citizens--teachers, parents, and students, in the case of schooling--to fight for it intelligently. The way teachers…

"Saxon Math" is a textbook series covering grades K-12 based on incremental development and continual review of mathematical concepts to give students time to learn and practice concepts throughout the year. A distinguishing feature of "Saxon Math" is its use of a distributed approach--spreading practice and instruction for any…

This study attempted to determine the influence of prior knowledge in mathematics of students on learner-interface interactions in a learning-by-teaching intelligent tutoring system. One hundred thirty-nine high school students answered a pretest (i.e., the prior knowledge in mathematics) and a posttest. In between the pretest and posttest, they…

Using Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012, an international education database, this study analyzed the evaluations of computer use for academic learning by 15-year-old students from seven Edu-systems (unit in PISA) in Eastern Asia. Six variables were identified in association with students' evaluations of computer use…

An after-school book club, led by the school librarian, was held to test the efficacy of the peritextual literacy framework (PLF) in teaching skills related to critical thinking, problem solving, information literacy, and media literacy. The PLF is an extension of paratext theory developed by Gérard Genette, which provides a typology of the…

In Singapore, primary school students are taught to use bar diagrams to represent known and unknown values in algebraic word problems. However, little is known about students' understanding of these graphical representations. We investigated whether students use and think of the bar diagrams in a concrete or a more abstract fashion. We also…

This study focuses on the retrospective evaluation of collaborative mLearning (CmL) Science module for teaching secondary school science which was designed based on social constructivist learning theories and Merrill's First Principle of Instruction. This study is part of a developmental research in which computer-mediated communication (CMC)…

Improving the mathematical skills of the next generation of students will require that elementary and middle school teachers are competent and confident in their abilities to perform fraction operations and to solve algebra equations The present study was conducted to (a) quantify relationships between prospective teachers' abilities to perform…

In the past, common people were expected to have skills in reading, writing and arithmetic to succeed to have a job. Philosophy and/or Science were required for reaching a high position and belonging to the national elite. In this new millennium, information, knowledge, science and technology constitute a real power, and an educated person is…

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of three types of concept maps (hierarchy, flowchart and spider) on the performance of students in Chemistry. This is with a view to find out which of the concept mapping types is more superior in enhancing students' performance in the numerical aspect of Chemistry. The pre-test, post-test…

Despite a great deal of research on the benefits of writing in mathematics, writing plays a minimal role, if any, in secondary and tertiary mathematics education. In order for teachers to use writing in their classrooms, they themselves have to experience writing mathematics within the teacher education programme. The present paper reports on a…