Developing students' strengths while teaching the content required by national and state standards in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is challenging for classroom teachers. In the Cultivating Diverse Talent in STEM (CDTIS) project, the assessment results found in strength-based reports gave teachers the tools needed to…

We share ideas for preparing for and enacting high-cognitive demand tasks in ways that support students in articulating and justifying their ideas. We offer strategies for developing and posing several types of purposeful questions: (1) eliciting thinking, (2) generating ideas, (3) clarifying explanations, and (4) justifying claims.

Gifted adolescents may identify as "gamers" who create avatars to navigate video games and cell phone apps. Avatars provide a unique venue through which gifted teens can explore the issues of self and identity in a critical time of their development. The purpose of this article is to (a) provide an overview of what avatars are, (b)…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate design principles for transforming existing making communities of practice within public libraries into online knowledge-building communities to support youths, families with young children and adult members' making and tinkering during COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: Building upon C4P and connected…

Educators across the nation are now well under way in implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers [NGA & CCSSO], 2010) for mathematics. The emerging literature regarding CCSS mathematics instruction for students with disabilities urges…

Hubka's theory of technical systems (TTS) is briefly outlined. It describes commonalities in all engineering devices, whatever their physical principles of action. This theory is based on a general transformation system (TrfS), which can be used to show engineering in the contexts of society, economics and historic developments. The life cycle of…

The study of solutions to polynomial equations over finite fields has a long history in mathematics and is an interesting area of contemporary research. In recent years, the subject has found important applications in the modelling of problems from applied mathematical fields such as signal analysis, system theory, coding theory and cryptology. In…

This brief "Math for Real" article introduces Ohanna, a seventh grader who lives in New York City and regularly takes the bus to get around the city. Ohanna pays $2.50 per bus ride when using her MetroCard. She earns a 5% bonus when she refills the card with a minimum of $5.00. For example, if she adds $10.00 on her MetroCard, her…

This investigation presents students with the challenge of determining the total number of eggs in a photograph of a stack of egg trays. The perspective of the photograph does not allow students to count all the individual eggs in the top tray but does allow them to see the number of eggs in one row and one column of the top tray. During this…

Introducing challenging tasks in such a way that makes them accessible, rather than daunting, to students is a challenge for teachers. Solving challenging tasks involves students having to grapple with the problem. The role of the teacher is to motivate and clarify the problem rather than showing students how to solve the problem.

In the process of learning mathematics, students practice various forms of thinking activities aimed to substantially contribute to the development of their different cognitive structures. In this paper, the subject matter is a "cognitive obstacle", a phenomenon that occurs in the procedures of solving mathematical tasks. Each task in…

Developing students' 21st century skills, including creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving, has been a prevailing concern in our globalized and hyper-connected society. One of the key components for students to accomplish this is to take part in today's participatory culture, which involves becoming creators of knowledge rather than…

In this paper, we describe a framework for data analysis that can be embedded into a base application. Since it is important to analyze the data directly inside the application where the data is entered, a tool that allows the scientists to easily work with their data, supports and motivates the execution of further analysis of their data, which…

Youth with juvenile justice (JJ) interactions and/or adjudications face a number of challenges as they transition back into their community, including college and career readiness needs. In addition to the typical concerns of adolescents facing postsecondary decisions, these youths' decisions are complicated by a myriad of other factors, often…

The social studies curriculum travels through time and space and is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. To an outsider, the social studies curriculum is a single line on a program of studies, 45 minutes of a student's school day. Those on the inside, however, know that the field covers history, geography, civics, economics, and much…