The Great Mini-Golf Project requires students to use a ruler to identify measurements to the quarter-inch, with careful precision and accuracy, which supported the Standards for Mathematical Practice 5 and 6: using appropriate tools to solve mathematical problems with precision (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010). This project also supported Standard…

With the increasing importance of teaching STEM to young students, the engineering design process (EDP) has become a popular learning platform in K-12 STEM education. The engineering design process guides students in solving engineering problems, but there is a lack of understanding of how students utilize this process. In this study, we explored…

This study aims to integrate biomimicry into science education by proposing a teaching approach for primary school students. An action research approach was used. The developed 'Biomimicry Teaching Approach' was applied in a 5th grade classroom in a public school in Turkey where one of the authors is a teacher. According to this approach, the…

Access to drinking water is becoming more limited as drought persists across continents. This article highlights a particularly impacted group of students due to increasing drought conditions and upstream river pollution near their reservation. While there are related water and modeling standards across the K-12 Next Generation Science Standards…

This study reports the findings from a year-long randomized evaluation assessing the impact of assigning 62 classrooms in Nigeria to receive either blocked or interleaved math problem sets. Blocked practice sessions focused on a single skill at a time. Interleaved problem sets alternated between different skills within a practice session. On tests…

This study investigated the technologies and tools used to support upper-level elementary students' engineering design and problem-solving activities in a bridge design and building challenge. The study was conducted in an eight-week afterschool program with a total of 36 4th to 6th grade students in small groups of four to six students. Analysis…

One challenge facing the fields of mathematics education and special education is how to design instruction on fraction concepts that can meet the needs of diverse learners. An innovation that shows promise is to base instructional design upon well-established trajectories of students' fraction learning. However, little research has been done to…

Background: As engineering becomes increasingly incorporated into precollege classrooms, it is important to explore students' ability to engage in engineering practices. One of these practices, "engaging in argument from evidence," has been well studied in science education. However, it has not yet been fully explored in engineering…

In a design-research project on problem-solving, theory-based and practice-oriented materials were developed with the goal of fostering systematical development of students' problem-solving competence in a targeted manner by learning heuristics. Special attention was given to working backward strategy, which has been shown difficult for students…

Productive Failure (PF) facilitates students' conceptual knowledge by delaying instruction until after problem solving. While PF is well investigated in middle and high school students, little is known about its effectiveness in younger students. Studies in younger samples, which implemented delayed instruction designs similar to those used in PF…

Although educational games have been used for a considerable time, their true potential for enhancing achievement and motivation is still being explored. We argue in this paper that we may get closer to realizing this potential if the theoretical underpinning of educational games is improved. We developed a simple interactive math game based on…

This article describes a new and unique context for integrating STEM and literacy instruction--Novel Engineering. Oftentimes, STEM design challenges are focused on developing solutions to the big problems that humans face such as cleaning up oil spills or contrived situations in which children are tasked with building solutions to hypothetical…

Research around problem solving in collaborative groups has made progress, but several conceptual and methodological issues remain. These issues include the appropriate choices of units of analysis; the ability of current theoretical sets of macrocognition codes to capture group dynamics; detection and identification of potentially emergent…

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) approach is considered important by many countries and projects carried out in order to integrate into their curriculum. The widespread use of STEM is only possible if teachers have positive thoughts, knowledge and experiences about it. In this study, it is aimed to answer these research…

With the continuous development and innovation of information technology, virtual reality (VR) has become an important topic of education technology in recent years. VR is not only applied in many industries, but is also used by scholars for education applications as it enables students to have an immersive learning experience to enhance their…