Project-based learning (PBL) aims to foster students' problem-solving ability and collaboration by engaging them in completing a project in teams. Researchers have indicated the importance of guiding students to make comparisons and reflection during the process of project-based learning. Therefore, the present research proposed a peer…

Many teachers reported improved skills in using technology as a direct result of teaching virtually during the pandemic (Bushweller, 2020). The authors wondered which uses of technology would continue as teachers transitioned back into face-to-face classrooms. Recognizing that mere incorporation of technology into instruction does not guarantee…

Students need to be actively engaged to learn--intellectually curious, physically active, and emotionally involved in collaborative work that builds their capacity for empathy. What can teachers do to instill these elements in the classroom? "Active Learning: 40 Teaching Methods to Engage Students in Every Class and Every Subject" is the…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine any correlations between an increase in knowledge from activities which utilize self-paced learning, inquiry-guided learning, and collaborative learning pedagogical strategies and students' intentions to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and computer science…

In secondary science education, students often do not feel engaged with the scientific concepts that are taught, which hinders conceptual learning. This lack of engagement can be overcome by fictional placemaking. Therefore, the purpose of our design-based research is to explore how the creation and use of fictional places lead to meaningful…

Teachers adapt their instructional strategies over time based on a variety of contextual constraints. In response to these challenges, teachers often have to make changes to their PBL approaches. While the literature has documented generally positive results of initial PBL implementations, less is known about the degree to which teachers adapt…

This qualitative study explores how middle school students in the Western United States participated in a curricular unit that focused on action for socioenvironmental sustainability. Using inductive coding and building on prior research, I examined actions that students took during this sustainability unit and how students talked about action…

Educational chatbots promise many benefits for teaching and learning. Although chatbot use cases in this research field are rapidly growing, most studies focus on individual users rather than on collaborative group settings. To address this issue, this paper investigates how chatbot-mediated learning can be designed to foster middle school…

Peer argumentation, especially the discussion of contrary points of view, has experimentally been found to be effective in promoting science content knowledge, but how this occurs is still unknown. The available explanations are insufficient because they do not account for the evidence showing that gains in content knowledge are unrelated to group…

The ability to work with people from different disciplinary is a skill for workplace and it is an important skill for teachers too. This study helps gain a better understanding of how engaging in interdisciplinary design teams impacts student teachers' self-efficacy through the use of collaborative concept maps. A statistically significant…

Many students do not experience usefulness in mathematics. To address this problem, we offered them a mathematical tool, Sankey diagrams, which is a flow chart appearing in news media to visualize social, industrial or environmental processes. We carried out an Educational Design Research (EDR) to develop and evaluate lesson materials about…

21st Century Standards and the Deeper Learning movement emphasize the ability to think critically and solve complex problems, to work well in teams, and to communicate effectively. While traditional classroom activities can meet these objectives, digital games and simulations provide unique affordances. When designed to incorporate formative…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the designed cultural ecology of a hip-hop and computational science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) camp and the ways in which that ecology contributed to culturally sustaining learning experiences for middle school youth. In using the principles of hip-hop as a CSP for design, the…

We report on a design-based research study that was conducted over three iterations. It chronicles the design, development, and implementation of School Scene Investigators, a forensic science game series for middle school students that utilizes mobile augmented reality. Played on mobile devices while exploring the school environment, School Scene…

In longitudinal studies, measurement invariance is required to conduct substantive comparisons over time or across groups. In this study, we examined measurement invariance on a recently developed instrument capturing student preferences for seven instructional strategies related to science learning and career interest. We have labeled these seven…