The recent proliferation of research on children's supernatural concepts is noteworthy, as this work is necessary for a full account of human cognition. Despite this advancement in our field, there is a lingering tendency for scholars to exotify supernatural concepts; to treat them as distinct or special. Arguments have been raised that these…

In practical work focussing on conceptual development, students spend valuable in-class time on collecting data rather than making sense out of it. This provides a barrier to learning about the targeted concept. To address this problem, we developed an approach that we coin "collaborative data collection." Using a practical on the topic…

This article aims to propose a digital version of Darwazeh's learning taxonomy. The DLT consists of 10 cognitive processes sequenced hierarchical from simple to complex either vertically from one mental process to another, or horizontally in each mental process. These cognitive processes are facts' remembrance, generalities' remembrance,…

This paper presents a new theoretical viewpoint blended from the perspectives that mathematical meaning is extracted (from objects falling under a particular concept) and that mathematical meaning is given (to objects that an individual interacts with). It is elaborated that neither uni-directional framing (whether involving extracting meaning or…

Vygotsky stated that concepts cannot be transmitted from mind to mind but instead developed through communication. Specifically, the instructional use of language would be the means for concept development. However, there is evidence to show that school concepts are particularly difficult to develop. Argumentation has been shown to promote the…

Educators have traditionally taught through topics and content, the content being discrete pieces of factual information (e.g., capital cities, dates of significant events, names of dinosaurs, parts of plants). While such factual information is important, learners do not always understand how to transfer the content to meaningful and authentic…

When people talk, they gesture, and those gestures often reveal information that cannot be found in speech. Learners are no exception. A learner's gestures can index moments of conceptual instability, and teachers can make use of those gestures to gain access into a student's thinking. Learners can also discover novel ideas from the gestures they…

In this Research Commentary, the author explores what is meant by "teaching for understanding" and delves into these questions: How does teaching for understanding interact with the backgrounds of the students who experience it or the attributes of the contexts in which they learn? Which empirical findings are context dependent, and…

In the summer of 2015, I conducted a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) experiment in my quantitative methods for political science class. The experiment tested if, during instruction, asking conceptual questions improved student learning more than asking recall questions. This article provides evidence that instruction with conceptual…

Plausibility judgments rarely have been addressed empirically in conceptual change research. Recent research, however, suggests that these judgments may be pivotal to conceptual change about certain topics where a gap exists between what scientists and laypersons find plausible. Based on a philosophical and empirical foundation, this article…

This manuscript presents a systematic review of the research on how students conceptualise matter. Understanding the structure and properties of matter is an essential part of science literacy. Over the last decades the number of studies on students' conceptions of matter published in peer-reviewed journals has increased significantly. These…

We introduce the Newtonian Gravity Concept Inventory (NGCI), a 26-item multiple-choice instrument to assess introductory general education college astronomy ("Astro 101") student understanding of Newtonian gravity. This paper describes the development of the NGCI through four phases: Planning, Construction, Quantitative Analysis, and…

Various texts related to education policy and education research have recently started using two conjugate concepts "competency" and "competence". These terms are sometimes treated as synonyms of a single concept; however, in other cases they are separated and used as two terms of different educational concepts. English also…

The supposed pre-eminence of an external examination can exert a disproportionate influence on a curriculum and the associated learning and teaching. Teaching can easily subordinate learning and understanding to curriculum coverage if the society develops a culture that appears to make such demands. This study focuses on Tanzania and provides the…

The author has worked for three days on a range of mathematical tasks in order to gain a deeper understanding of the role of notation in mathematics education. The general conclusions were that while mathematical notation can be powerful it can also be obstructive. In this article, the author explores the importance on notation in supporting…