This study examined the effects of the engineering design-based activities developed in the context of aircraft engineering on the engineering design process (EDP) skills of students. Through the notebooks that the students provided during the implementation process, their EDP skills for each engineering design phase (identification of the…

Students' creativity is a fundamental goal in education. The school has a strategic role in developing students' creativity. This study elaborates on classroom activities to develop students' creativity. The study used a mixed-method sequential explanatory design. Quantitative data were obtained from six hundred junior and senior high school…

Problem-solving is, by nature, a creative process which, by teaching through the implementation of research and discovery activities, allows students to create their knowledge, revise it and link it to broader systems. The aim of the research was to describe and analyse the process of solving biological problems through activities that are…

Gamified-integrated STEM is a technique that combines integrated STEM stages with gamification elements and can engage individuals in climate change communication. This paper presents a gamified-integrated STEM activity focused on global climate change. The activity includes gamified-integrated STEM instructional stages implemented in 6 lesson…

Engineering design practices in STEM education focus on reflecting the discipline-specific work of engineers in a manner that is suitable for the student level and course learning objectives. Using an engineering design context also facilitates student identification of global problems and feasible solutions to address such problems. In this…

The aim of this study is to present the implementation steps of an engineering design process-based activity. The activity was implemented with 6th-grade students; 21 students were involved. Various visuals were used to attract the students' attention during the introduction of the activity, and discussions were held about engineers and…

Background and Context: Computational thinking (CT) is a critical part of computing education in middle school. The existing practices of collaboration and collaborative design activities at this education level pairs well with CT practices, but this interaction has previously been under-explored in the existing literature. Objective: In this…

This study aims to describe the abstraction of epistemic action, which includes recognition, building-with and construction in junior high school students with low spatial ability in constructing cube nets. The research method used in this study is an exploratory qualitative method with the primary data in the form of interviews with two junior…

In conjunction with local middle schools, the Make to Learn Lab in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia offered a two-week Summer Engineering Academy for students who completed an introductory engineering course during the previous school year. In that course, students worked with circuits and advanced…

In this article, we describe a year-long superhero storytelling project we facilitated with youth in a midwestern middle school. In this project, students read "Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spiderman," designed superhero stories set in their community, and presented artistic representations of their stories to their families and peers. We…

Racism impacts the lives of students who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) in a myriad of ways. It is important that future teachers go beyond individual acts of racism to understand how racism operates as a system. To this end, we designed and implemented a statistical investigation with 13 preservice teachers using real…

Promoting pre-service teachers' development of professional dispositions through purposefully designed learning experiences may be middle level teacher education's most important contribution to a novice's development from student to teacher. The 2022 Revised Middle Level Teacher Preparation Standards explicitly address this expectation in…

The Internet of Things is shifting the way people interact with each other, the way people interact with objects, and the way objects interact with each other. This reality is creating a new paradigm, where the world becomes more interconnected. In the field of Education, we are at the beginning of understanding the profound transformation that…

Emergent graphical shape thinking (EGST) involves interpreting or constructing a graph as dynamically generated, which is useful across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Although evidence suggests that students as young as middle school can engage in EGST with support, other research indicates most college students and U.S.…

This article investigates the incorporation of loose parts as a means to enhance student creativity within educational environments. Loose parts refer to flexible, movable objects that can be manipulated, combined, and repurposed in various ways. The study delves into the theoretical underpinnings that support the connection between loose parts…