We report on a study of what happened when we recycled a conceptual examination question in a first-year university physics course. The question, which was used for three consecutive years, asked about an astronaut's experience of weighing in an orbiting space-craft. The original intention was to use a phenomenographic approach to look for…

This paper stems from the ESRC TLRP Learning How to Learn--in Classrooms, Schools and Networks Project, and explores how Assessment for Learning (AfL) relates, conceptually, to learning how to learn (LHTL). The term LHTL was intended to draw attention to a primary focus on learning practices, and we have related the processes of AfL to LHTL. A…

This study reports on a multi-year effort to create and evaluate cognitive-based curricular materials for secondary school science classrooms. A team of secondary teachers, educational researchers, and academic biomedical engineers developed a series of curriculum units that are based in biomedical engineering for secondary level students in…

For international college students, the failure to achieve their educational goals regarding their program of study creates a large amount of stress. These international students experience pressure to succeed from their families, sponsoring agencies, or even the communities from their home country. For Middle Eastern students who come to study at…

Mathematical creativity ensures the growth of mathematics as a whole. However, the source of this growth, the creativity of the mathematician, is a relatively unexplored area in mathematics and mathematics education. In order to investigate how mathematicians create mathematics, a qualitative study involving five creative mathematicians was…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a National Institute of Corrections' cognitive-behavioral program for adult offenders, entitled "Thinking for a Change." One hundred male and 42 female probationers were studied. Probationers assigned to the "Thinking for a Change" program were matched with a comparison group not assigned to the program…

There is little data available concerning the executive functions of children with dyslexia. The small number of existing studies in this field focus on single aspects of these functions such as working memory. The aim of the present study was therefore to assess a variety of aspects of executive functioning in children with dyslexia. Forty-two…

This study makes use of an action research paradigm to improve primary students' analyzing skills. It was conducted at the San Esteban Elementary School, Region I, Philippines, during the 6-week off campus practice teaching of one of the researchers. Sources of data include a thinking skills checklist, a set of Curriculum Support Materials (CSM),…

How can it be explained that, aside from inter-individual differences, pupils in certain classes are more responsive than others to the formal aspects of a problem that has been set? The author puts forward the hypothesis that teachers differ in their ability to operate relevant variations in the conception of problems. The differences in…

This study involved an investigation of the relationship between the kinds of solution representations Chinese and U.S. students use and the sorts of pedagogical representations Chinese and U.S. teachers use during instruction. The findings suggest that the representations teachers use influence the representations their students use and, hence,…

Student success in solving physics problems is related to the representational format of the problem. We study student representational competence in two large-lecture algebra-based introductory university physics courses with approximately 600 participants total. We examined student performance on homework problems given in four different…

In a recent study we showed that physics students' problem-solving performance can depend strongly on problem representation, and that giving students a choice of problem representation can have a significant impact on their performance [ P. B. Kohl and N. D. Finklestein, Phys. Rev. ST. Phys. Educ. Res. 1, 010104 (2005) ] In this paper, we…

This article offers an introduction to the central concepts and principles of the Systemic-Structural Theory of Activity (SSTA), an activity-theoretical approach specifically tailored to the analysis and design of human work. In activity theory, cognition is understood both as a process and as a structured system of actions. Building on the…

This paper reports on an online guided reading program designed and developed by the authors, and implemented in class conditions. The program allows students to read a short story from a computer screen and obtain immediate support, in the form of suggested problem-solving strategies designed to help them overcome the lexical and grammatical…

The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium's (INTASC's) (1992) standards for beginning teachers and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' core propositions highlight the importance of collaborative problem solving for teachers. They suggest teachers work together with other school professionals, parents, and…