Through the historical analysis of Dienes' works and through the suggestions of activities, the objective of this text is to understand the movement of systematization of knowledge for teaching and to teach classification, ranking, and ordination through the use of logical blocks during the Modern Mathematics Movement (1960-1980), a time of…

The Periodic Table of Elements is a valuable resource for chemists and all kinds of STEM professionals. However, it can be initially overwhelming and intimidating to some students. This hands-on lesson introduces abstract concepts in the periodic table through a tangible experience with simple toys and household objects. Students collaborate and…

Teaching geometry courses for preservice elementary teachers, we observed that difficulty with classifying shapes (and, in particular, composite 3-D shapes) persists even after work with simple shapes to support the writing of accurate and unambiguous definitions. We conducted a self-study of our teaching of 3-D concepts to uncover the concept…

Flexagons, introduced to a wide audience 50 years ago by Martin Gardner, now have an extensive literature and are an active field of research. This paper describes two kinds: edge flexagons and point flexagons, and gives an example of one means of classification.

There is a dearth of research regarding young children with high intellectual abilities, particularly research involving the direct observation of children in naturalistic settings. The current study examines 2 years of observations of young children (aged 37-71 months; n = 34) at an early childhood facility. The children were observed during the…

When learning object function, infants must detect relations among features--for example, that squeezing is associated with squeaking or that objects with wheels roll. Previously, Perone and Oakes (2006) found 10-month-old infants were sensitive to relations between object appearances and actions, but not to relations between appearances and…

Elementary teachers of science are at a great advantage because observation--collecting information about the world using the five senses--and classification--sorting things by properties--come so naturally to children. Many examples of classification occur in science: Scientists, for example, group things starting with large categories, such as…

Geometry, classification, and the classification of geometrical objects are integral aspects of recent curriculum documents in mathematics education. Such curriculum documents, however, leave open how the "work" of classifying objects according to geometrical properties can be accomplished given that the knowledge of these properties is the…

Presents three classification activities in which students work in cooperative small groups using physical materials to foster flexible thinking in doing mathematics. Concludes that attribute blocks are useful physical manipulatives for promoting classification activities and problem-solving skills. (ASK)

This article was written as a result of the author reading "MT177," a special issue dedicated to the teaching of "proof" in mathematics. He used the ideas in this special issue for planning his session "mathematical reasoning and proof," which was part of a weekend course for primary trainees. It consisted of three activities: (1) How many…

Purpose: The purpose of this scientific monograph is to show new and creative approaches to different school subjects in primary and secondary level. Methodology: Interdisciplinary and international comparative approaches were used. Now according to the 7th Framework Program, the preferred form of Science Education (www.scientix.eu) is preferred…

Young children do science exploration and observation every day in their play. They spontaneously engage in parts of the scientific inquiry process--wondering, asking a question, planning how to answer the question, documenting their work, thinking about what happened, and sharing their results with others. Conducting an entire experiment is…

Field-dependent and independent subjects sorted geometric and verbal material according to category exemplars, forcing active learning, and then recalled the category locations. Field-independent individuals generally performed better on learning and memory tasks with a more active approach. Active versus passive learning styles are discussed.…

Attribute blocks are described, with suggestions for developing sets of attribute materials. Various activities and games are described and illustrated. (MNS)

Four major types of games using two sets of materials (Logical Blocks and word cards) are described: free play with the materials; organization of materials; relations games; and classification by one, two, or three attributes simultaneously. (DT)