Pretend play is often hypothesized in a global sense to be an effective context for young children's learning, but there is much still to learn about whether all types of information can be learned equally and whether all types of pretend play are equally beneficial. The present study tests whether preschoolers can learn a simple, novel causal…

Algebra is critical in shaping future mathematics success and is integral to the K-12 curriculum. Despite its inclusion, a common challenge arises as students' progress to higher grades without a solid foundation, resulting in challenging learning experiences. This action research study focuses on the algebraic learning experience of a Grade 7…

Cognitive development of eighth-grade students, as identified by Jean Piaget, occurs during a time when many of them are transitioning between concrete operations and formal operations where the ability to think in abstract concepts becomes possible. Because of this period of transition, many eighth-grade students find difficulty in demonstrating…

To promote learning and transfer of abstract ideas, contemporary theories advocate that teachers and learners make explicit connections between concrete representations and the abstract ideas they are intended to represent. "Concreteness fading" is a theory of instruction that offers a solution for making these connections. As originally…

Multilingual college students often struggle with writing and revising for academic purposes. This dissertation explored the effectiveness of a Concept-Based Language Instruction (C-BLI) approach to teaching revision processes to college-level multilingual writers. Although a significant body of research exists on effective feedback on…

A lesson plan is a design problem for a teacher. The desired solution to this problem is to design an instructional process that can guide students in constructing an understanding of scientific concepts through their own thinking. This article demonstrates a practical approach to designing an effective lesson plan. The approach has five phases:…

Formal climate education without consideration of the ocean is incomplete. The effectiveness of a new climate lesson for youth that includes the ocean-climate nexus was examined by delivering the lesson to nine classes situated in separate British Columbia, Canada public schools and assessing the students' understanding of basic climate concepts…

This study investigates the impact of utilizing dynamically linked concrete and abstract representations of objects in modern, virtual electric circuit laboratories on the cognitive evolution and the representational fluency of high school students. The students (N = 27, aged 16-17) were randomly divided into two classes: the first class used a…

A digital instructional game with embedded multimedia was believed not limited to allowing the learner to visualize chemistry concepts while playing but enable them to collect relevant information that connects the understanding of the other. The subject was described as a core science area with multiple macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic…

From a cognitivist theory stance, domain-specific subject knowledge is necessary for deep learning and cognitive advance. What opportunities for deep learning and cognitive advance are provided in geography classrooms? This analysis of teaching in geography classrooms is framed by the concepts of deep learning, pedagogic discourse, and a…

Purpose: This study explored the relationship of robotics activity with the development of conceptual understanding skills among secondary school students. Method: Forty-four sixteen-year-old Form 4 (Year 10) students in a fully government-aided school who have access to functioning LEGO-Mindstorms sets during physics lessons participated in the…

In the quest for quality in early childhood education, it is important to explore the subtleties that define socio-culturally relevant pedagogy. A qualitative, multi-case study approach was used to explore perspectives of teachers about socio-cultural influences on their teaching in kindergarten classrooms in Ghana. Four teachers from two…

Our paper builds on the construct of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky in Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978) to analyze the relationship between students' answers and the help they receive as they construct them. We report on a secondary analysis of…

Children, 4-6 years of age, in special education kindergartens were randomly assigned to a classification training (n 45) and a comparison (n 49) group. Children in the training group were taught the Classification unit of Bright Start, whereas those in the comparison group received a regular content-oriented curriculum. Both groups were given…

The article deals with the problems arising within transition from the traditional to the modern educational paradigm. Taking the use of school geography textbooks and teachers' guides as examples the author offers innovative technology for the development of student's personality cognitive experience implemented due to the combination of…