As part of the author's doctoral program at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, she conducted a study to determine whether and how former sixth-grade students at Waikiki School were using the thinking processes and strategies they were taught in elementary school when they were in middle school. In order to find this out, she interviewed eight…

This study examines the motor skills and executive functioning (EF) of 28 children diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; mean age: 10 years 6 months, range: 7-12 years; 19 boys, 9 girls) in comparison with age- and gender-matched typically developing children. The potential relationship between motor…

Individual aptitude, attitudes, and behavior in inquiry-based learning (IBL) settings may affect work and learning performance outcomes during activities using different technologies. To encourage multifaceted learning, factors in IBL settings must be statistically significant and effective, and not cognitively or psychomotor intensive. We…

Education researchers are increasingly working in practice-based partnerships in order to direct their research efforts toward important problems of practice. We argue for the creation of an infrastructure to support routine and sustained interaction among researchers, practitioners, and designers in order to make partnership efforts more…

Solving complex, ill-structured problems may be effectively supported by case-based reasoning through case libraries that provide just-in-time domain-specific principles in the form of stories. The cases not only articulate previous experiences of practitioners, but also serve as problem-solving narratives from which learners can acquire meaning.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the main characteristics of the role-playing game "Strategic Micro-Firm" which aims to reproduce the fundamental features of a complex supply chain. Design/methodology/approach: A specific role-playing game is presented, in which a Balanced Scorecard is used as the reporting device and is…

For decades, debates have raged about performance management in education. While it is essential to understand the degree of student learning and the nature of teacher impact in education systems, when attempts at managing outcomes go wrong, the consequences can be problematic. National Education Organization (a pseudonym for the organization…

This paper provides examples of Aid-to-Thought uses in urban decision making, classroom laboratory planning, and in a ship antiaircraft defense system. Aid-to-Thought modeling and simulations are tools students can use effectively in a STEM classroom while meeting Standards for Technological Literacy Benchmarks O and R. These projects prepare…

Problem solving is fundamental to psychoeducational assessment practices and generally grounded in activities related to identifying problems, developing and refining hypotheses, generating solutions, developing and implementing actions, and evaluating outcomes. While the process is central to response-to-intervention practices as well, little…

What is, or should be, the role of ethics in giftedness? In this article, I consider why ethical behavior is much harder to come by than one would expect. Ethical behavior requires completion of a series of eight steps to action, the failure of any one of which may result in a person, even one who is ethically well trained, to act in a manner that…

Decision making is the most common kind of problem solving. It is also an important component skill in other more ill-structured and complex kinds of problem solving, including policy problems and design problems. There are different kinds of decisions, including choices, acceptances, evaluations, and constructions. After describing the centrality…

Twenty middle grades students were interviewed to gain insights into their reasoning about problem-solving strategies using a Problem Solving Justification Scheme as our theoretical lens and the basis for our analysis. The scheme was modified from the work of Harel and Sowder (1998) making it more broadly applicable and accounting for research…

How do people select among different strategies to accomplish a given task? Across disciplines, the strategy selection problem represents a major challenge. We propose a quantitative model that predicts how selection emerges through the interplay among strategies, cognitive capacities, and the environment. This interplay carves out for each…

This paper presents a theoretical basis for cultivating engineering education as a complex system that will prepare students to think critically and make decisions with regard to poorly understood, ill-structured issues. Integral to this theoretical basis is a solution space construct developed and presented as a benchmark for evaluating…

The Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework, which uses a systems approach to promote school improvement and support all students in improving academics and behavior using data-based problem-solving, is a key part of the Wake County Public Schools System (WCPSS) Strategic Plan. As of 2017-18, MTSS schools were at the initial stages of MTSS…