Insights on students' own authentic design practices--nascent design practices without much adult guidance--are crucial to informing responsive facilitation of engineering design tasks. This study unpacks how elementary students interpret teacher given information about a design task, and interact with each other and given resources, to traverse a…

The hundreds chart is a valuable tool for teachers in elementary mathematics classrooms. The present study investigated the effects of spatial configurations of virtual hundreds charts on children's knowledge of base-ten concepts. Kindergarten and first-grade students were assigned to three instructional conditions in which they worked with a…

This paper documents the development of the Geometric Spatial Assessment. We detail the development of this instrument which was designed to identify middle school students' strategies and advancement in understanding of four geometric concept domains (geometric spatial visualization, spatial projection, cardinal directions, and periodic patterns)…

This research investigated how fourth and fifth grade students spontaneously "unpacked" a word problem when generating a graphic representation to aid in problem solution. Relationships among the type of graphic representation produced, spatial visualization, drawing ability, gender, and problem solving also were examined and described.…

Seventy fifth-grade students in Australia were observed as each solved a jigsaw puzzle. Boys obtained higher scores on a measure of cognitive style and took less time to complete the jigsaw task; the two measures were significantly correlated. Uses of tangrams are also discussed. (MNS)

Described are pentonimoe activities which nurture a nonanxious attitude toward math and science, promote an atmosphere of cooperation, support development of problem-solving skills, and provide spatial-ability skill exercises. These activities can be used by students at all educational levels. (KR)