Research studies support caregivers' involvement in children's mathematical journeys, as foundational to their cognitive development and academic success as mathematical learners. The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to understand how a caregiver initiated and/or continually engaged their child in spontaneous mathematical moments during a…

This perspective paper analyses the possibilities and challenges of using cheminformatics as a context for STEM education. The objective is to produce theoretical insights through a SWOT analysis of an authentic educational cheminformatics project where future chemistry teachers engineered a physical 3D model using cheminformatics software and a…

Novice design students struggle to engage with early stage design visualization tools such as sketching and prototyping. Instead students have a preference for designing with digital tools such as CAD modelling, motivated by inhibitions around sketching skill, which in turn leads to fixation and sunk cost effects. These behaviors present a barrier…

Awareness of faculty research interests is an important aspect of a subject librarian's responsibilities. This paper illustrates the potential of Voyant Tools, an application in wide use among digital humanities researchers, to reveal word patterns in the research output of applied science faculty. A corpus of recent article citations from Web of…

Engaging students in conversations around science and engineering design can be challenging. Sparking such conversations during field trips at an interactive science center has additional challenges. First, students vary considerably in age from day to day: science center employees might work with first graders one day and sixth graders the next.…

"How does an aircraft fly?" is one of the most frequently asked science questions by young pupils. The lift on airplane wings also makes a great example of the application of the Bernoulli principle while teaching fluid mechanics in introductory physics and engineering courses. The topic is of great interest and is therefore covered in…

Spatial visualization is a well-established topic of education research that has allowed improving science and engineering students' skills on spatial relations. Connections have been established between visualization as a comprehension tool and instruction in several scientific fields. Learning about dynamic processes mainly relies upon static…

In this article, we examined whether technical drawing increased the mental rotation ability in 13- to 15-year-old students (N = 201). Students were pretested with the Mental Rotations Test. Later, a group of students was exposed to technical drawing for 10 weeks, which involved specific training with spatial activities and tasks, to increase…

The impact of spatial visualization ability on student outcomes in a freshman-level, 3D modeling class is explored by analyzing connections between students' spatial ability pre- and post-test scores, course grades, and self-reported difficulty of an assignment. Analysis of the results indicate that spatial visualization ability, as measured by…

In recent years, several innovations have emerged in the field of education, including Blended-Learning, Massive Open Online Courses, Flipped Classroom and Gamification. In particular, several investigations have highlighted the effectiveness of student response systems, or clickers, in different subjects and disciplines. Although some literature…

This paper discusses the use of a free mobile engineering application (app) called Autodesk® ForceEffect™ to provide students assistance with spatial visualization of forces and more practice in solving/visualizing statics problems compared to the traditional pencil-and-paper method. ForceEffect analyzes static rigid-body systems using free-body…

Industrial Designers need to understand and command a number of modelling techniques to communicate their ideas to themselves and others. Verbal explanations, sketches, engineering drawings, computer aided design (CAD) models and physical prototypes are the most commonly used communication techniques. Within design, unlike some disciplines,…

Spatial abilities have been used as a predictor of success in several engineering and technology disciplines (Strong & Smith, 2001). In engineering graphics courses, scores on spatial tests have also been used to predict success (Adanez & Velasco, 2002; Leopold, Gorska, & Sorby, 2001). Other studies have shown that some type of…

In this article, the author describes two lessons in which students applied the scientific knowledge learned from studying offshore oil drilling to construct a fact-based argument on the topic and then communicate it to their policy makers, since public commentary was solicited. The students practiced using their scientific knowledge to…

Engineering graphics has historically been viewed as a challenging course to teach as students struggle to grasp and understand the fundamental concepts and then to master their proper application. The emergence of stable, fast, affordable 3D parametric modeling platforms such as CATIA, Pro-E, and AutoCAD while providing several pedagogical…