Curiosity, creativity, and aesthetics are typically studied separately. The extent to which they share psychological and neural mechanisms is not well understood, despite all being linked to broader personality characteristics like Openness to Experience and are driven by a desire for information and knowledge. Here, we review evidence and advance…

Since Bruner's introduction of discovery learning in the 1960s, there has been an ongoing and intensive debate on the value of inductive teaching methods (e.g., problem-solving followed by instruction, such as in problem-based learning and productive failure) compared to deductive teaching methods (instruction followed by problem-solving, such as…

South Africa has been battling with the poor performance of learners in Mathematics for a long time, with the Eastern Cape province being the worst-performing province. The Department of Education and other educational stakeholders have embarked on a journey of searching for solutions. Some of these include the use of Information communication…

The comprehensive practical activity curriculum can be said to be created to cater to children's curiosity and nature of exploration. Through the creation of problem situations, children are guided not only to explore what the world is, but also to pay close attention to what the world will be and cultivate children's key competencies in the real…

Meaningful learning occurs when individuals connect their existing knowledge with their current understanding. Unfortunately, many teaching practices neglect the learners' subconscious knowledge, also known as their "funds of knowledge." The result is a disconnect between school and home knowledge, social injustice towards students whose…

This quasi-experimental study investigates the comparative effectiveness of inquiry-based learning, STEAM, and Guided Inquiry-STEAM (GI-STEAM) in fostering elementary students' creative thinking skills and scientific attitudes. A total of 115 students from public elementary schools in Semarang Regency, Central Java, Indonesia, were given a…

Inspired by a theoretical view of knowledge as a resource, this study explored in detail how a student used knowledge as a resource when she engaged in problem-solving about rocks and what she learned as a result of the practice of solving scientific problems. The context of the study was an inquiry project conducted in an earth science course for…

Out of school time (OST) STEM opportunities are often presented as ways to support student achievement, understanding, and identity in STEM. Recent work has begun to explore how OST programs function within the STEM Learning Ecosystem, a holistic view of the various STEM learning opportunities available to youth in a given area. In order to…

Broad exploration is often the best way to solve complex problems because the best solution might not come to mind first. Consequently, creative thinking, like simulated annealing, begins with a "hot" exploratory phase of broad solution search and gradually "cools" to exploitation and narrowing the search space. In solving…

Based on the development of education in Indonesia today, teachers still teach in ways that make students memorize lessons. A learning model is needed that can support students to think critically. One of the learning models that can support students to think critically is through guided discovery learning model with argument mapping. This study…

For a semester within a transition-to-proof course, mathematics majors explored two famous conjectures: The Twin Primes Conjecture and the Collatz Conjecture. Students were scaffolded into exploring the conjectures through directed activities but were also expected to create their own methods of exploration. We documented students' experiences…

Professionals are increasingly involved in attempts to understand and address problems with wicked tendencies, which require crossing boundaries between disciplines, organisations and stakeholder perspectives. This multiple-case study investigated six higher professional education courses in order to develop better understanding of how teachers…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the nature of small group discussion tasks and learners' talk during Physical Science lessons. The study was conducted during Physical Science lessons with three self-selected groups of Grade 11 learners from one school. A total of three lessons were followed. During the…

How do people use information from others to solve complex problems? Prior work has addressed this question by placing people in social learning situations where the problems they were asked to solve required varying degrees of exploration. This past work uncovered important interactions between groups' "connectivity" and the problem's…

Major experimental teaching plays a crucial role in cultivating the ability of undergraduates majoring in environmental engineering to solve complex engineering problems. The study explores the integration of scientific research resources into undergraduate experimental teaching, aiming to enhance the quality of talent cultivation by transforming…