This work presents experiments to teach fundamentals of automation through a sequence of laboratory practices that naturally guide to development of an on/off control system. It focuses on the integration of technological and scientific concepts, based on an educational approach associated with a problem-solving technique.

Universal behavioral screening in the school setting plays a vital role in the prevention and early intervention of child difficulties. While universal screening methods have evolved, measures appear to examine child characteristics based on data collected primarily from teachers and children. Parents may also have important information to…

Given two vectors u and v, their cross product u × v is a vector perpendicular to u and v. The motivation for this property, however, is never addressed. Here we show that the existence of the cross and dot products and the perpendicularity property follow from the concept of linear combination, which does not involve products of vectors. For our…

We aim to open up discussion about the intertwined roles of teachers and tasks that involve students communicating about mathematics when working in groups. Over many years we have observed, researched and ourselves have taught students working on mathematics in groups and find that it is often easier to pay attention to the forms of communication…

Historical fiction is a powerful way of transmitting national history to later generations. It emerged in the nineteenth century as a means of building identity and fostering solidarity. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, former representations of history were deconstructed. Instead of glorifying the nation, social evils were exposed. As a…

A central goal of physics education is to teach problem-solving competency, but the description of the nature of this competency is somewhat fragmentary and implicit in the literature. The present article uses recent historical scholarship on Arnold Sommerfeld and Enrico Fermi to identify and characterize two positions on the nature of physics…

Physics is often seen as an excellent introduction to science because it allows students to learn not only the laws governing the world around them, but also, through the problems students solve, a way of thinking which is conducive to solving problems outside of physics and even outside of science. In this article, we contest this latter idea and…

"Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge-Direct Training Module" (PEAK-DTM) is a commercially available assessment and curriculum for individuals whose language skills are not developmentally adequate. In their review of PEAK-DTM, Reed and Luiselli (2016) analyzed the extant literature on PEAK-DTM and concluded that it has a sound…

This article is a response to the methodological problems I experienced during fieldwork. It follows that the article is an experiment of creating alternative possibilities for thinking about ethnocentrism as a phenomenon in transformation in a contemporary, innovative, higher educational setting. Throughout the article, I argue for the…

Considerable evidence has shown that physical exercise could be an effective treatment in reducing stereotypical autism spectrum disorder (ASD) behaviors in children. The present study seeks to examine the underlying mechanism by considering the theoretical operant nature of stereotypy. Children with ASD (n = 30) who exhibited hand-flapping and…

Researchers have demonstrated that comprehensive behavioral intervention can result in significant improvements in the lives of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; e.g.; Lovaas, "Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology" 55(1):3-9, 1987; McEachin et al., "American Journal of Mental Retardation"…

Commonly used in research settings, noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) is a function-based intervention for decreasing challenging behaviors (Carr, Severtson, & Lepper, 2009). Function-based interventions effectively change behavior through detailed analysis of why the behavior occurs (Lane, Kalberg, & Shepcaro, 2009). Practitioners…

We deal with an application of partial differential equations to the correct definition of a wine cellar. We present some historical details about this problem. We also discuss how to build or renew a wine cellar, creating ideal conditions for the ageing process and improving the quality of wines. Our goal is to calculate the optimal depth…

Most studies on fairness behavior in preschool focus on fair resource allocation and on children's behavior when faced with fairness dilemmas. The purpose of this study is to understand preschoolers' point of view: what do they think when presented with various scenarios that call for fairness behavior? We interviewed 66 children aged 3.5-6 years,…

Critical realism offers a useful epistemology and ontology for conceptualizing theoretical and methodological considerations in global learning and may help to bridge the quantitative/qualitative divide that plagues social science. This article elaborates critical realist principles, concepts and methodologies to explain how they can be employed…