This research investigates the impact of mathematical problems created with Scratch on the problem-solving skills of 8th-grade middle school students. The research was based on the descriptive design of mixed research approaches. In this direction, the research model was single-group pretest-posttest design, which is a weak experimental design…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the 8th graders interpreted the equal sign in the pan balance activities they created on Scratch. Five eighth graders (4 girls and 1 boy) in Turkey participated in this study. Case study was employed as a qualitative research method. Data was gathered through the Scratch files created by the…

The importance of computational thinking skills in mathematics has been recognized in educational research for a long time. More recently, this recognition has materialized in formal international recommendations (e.g., by PISA's 2022 Mathematics Framework) and in national or provincial curricular reforms (e.g., in France, Sweden, and Canada) that…

STEM integration holds significant promise for supporting students in making connections among ideas and ways of thinking that might otherwise remain "siloed." Nevertheless, activities that integrate disciplines can present challenges to learners. In particular, they can require students to shift epistemological framing, demands that can…

The purpose of this study is to examine 8th grade students' skills of connecting mathematics to real life. This study uses survey design since it aims to determine existing situations regarding to students' skills of connecting mathematics to real life. The study sample consists of 176 students in total, who are studying at a state school in the…

Flipped instruction is becoming more common in the United States, particularly in mathematics classes. One of the defining characteristics of this increasingly popular instructional format is the homework teachers assign. In contrast to traditional mathematics classes in which homework consists of problem sets, homework in flipped classes often…

Deictic linking gestures, hand and arm motions that physically embody links being communicated between two or more objects in the shared communicative environment, are explored in a cross-cultural sample of mathematics instruction. Linking gestures are specifically examined here when they occur in the context of communicative analogies designed to…

The present study aimed to investigate how history of mathematics was integrated to some mathematics textbooks in Turkey. On this account, four different textbooks with different grade levels were chosen. In total, 42 cases were detected and studied by three researchers. Results indicated that the usage of history of mathematics was materialized…

By 2020, five of the top ten in-demand jobs in the United States will be in information technology (Moeller 2012). Companies across the nation are seeking a new type of employee: one who is computer savvy and who is familiar with computer coding, data, mathematics, and augmented reality (Leber 2013). Recent reports indicate that, although students…

Video podcasts allow students to control when, where, and what they learn, as well as the pace of learning. Considerable research has been conducted in higher education on video podcast use, but not in middle schools (grades six to eight). This study investigated the use of worked example video podcasts in mathematics classrooms with students 11…

This study examined how literal symbols affect students' understanding of algebraic expressions. Middle school students (N = 322) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions in which they were asked to interpret an expression (e.g., 4c + 3b) in a story problem. Each literal symbol represented the price of an item. In the c-and-b condition, the…