This paper provides a critical and detailed study of what researchers in the fields of contemporary cognition and neuroscience have revealed about the blurred boundary between perception and cognition. We set out the arguments with a view to what researchers and teachers should now consider regarding the subtleties of their interrelationship in…

This study explores science teachers' questions encouraging students to see and speak about natural phenomena in novel ways. In particular, the teachers' challenging questions that may be instrumental in persuading students to see and talk about everyday events differently were qualitatively examined. The participants were 22 science teachers.…

Young children often struggle with referential communications because they fail to compare all valid referents. In two studies, we investigated this comparison process. In Study 1, 4-7 year-olds (N = 114) were asked to categorize pairs of objects according to their similarities or differences, and then identified a unique quality of one of the…

When teaching about complex phenomena (e.g. concepts related to the natural environment), good quality questioning could lead to a more profound conceptual change. However, asking questions that help students to construct new knowledge is a challenge for many educators. To help promote better questioning, we analyzed the kind of questions (N =…

An ability to engage in system thinking is necessary to understand complex problems. While many pre-college students use system modeling tools, there is limited evidence of student reasoning about causal relationships that interact in diverging and converging chains, and how these affect system behavior. A chemistry unit on gas phenomena was…

In this study, the skills of middle school teachers to write open-ended questions that measure higher-order mental skills were examined. For this purpose, 18 middle school teachers who worked in Artvin, Turkey and volunteered to participate in the study were asked to write questions. Teachers wrote open-ended questions for a total of 4 courses…

The aim of this paper is to present a teaching proposal for the theoretical part relating to the first- and second-order linear difference equations with constant coefficients suitable for the first-year students at various types of universities. In contradistinction to the methods often applied (memorization of algorithms without a proper…

In group activities, students work collaboratively to accomplish specific objectives. Students have to engage and interact with each other in order to complete collaborative assignments. One way that students stay engaged is through asking questions. In the research reported here, we looked at peer-to-peer questions in the context of a…

A challenge for prospective teachers (PTs) is to determine what students know about a topic through asking appropriate questions and being thoughtful about the wording of these questions so as to capture and reframe students' spontaneous mathematical thinking and eventually unriddle the fuzzy boundary of students' complex thinking. This study…

Dual-process theories of reasoning suggest that humans reason using two processes often referred to as process 1 (heuristic) and process 2 (analytic). When presented with a situation requiring any sort of reasoning or decision making, process 1 automatically engages and generates an initial mental model to address the situation. Process 2 may or…

This study developed a phenomenographic argument regarding science teacher educators' (STEs) question-asking conceptions. Question-asking in teaching how to teach science concepts to prospective science teachers is a fundamental strategy. However, STEs' conceptual understanding of the question-asking phenomenon is uncharted territory. The present…

This extensively updated teaching resource provides over 100 engaging, full-color visuals with explanations of how they can be used to stimulate mathematics learning, to explain mathematical concepts, and to assess students' mathematical understanding in grades K--8. Readers are provided with a strong mathematical background, downloadable copies…

In recent years, there has been an effort to develop reform-oriented and inquiry-based early science instruction. Preliminary studies suggest that participation in inquiry-based learning activities promotes preschoolers' learning and interest in science. In addition, science education in early childhood is of great importance to many aspects of a…

Learning assistants (LAs) play a pivotal role in transforming traditional physics instruction toward a more inquiry-oriented approach. While empirical evidence supports the effectiveness of LA-involved physics instruction, there is a research gap regarding the specific competencies of LAs that contribute to improved conceptual understanding. One…

The study aims at examining middle school mathematics teachers' conceptions of openended questions. A questionnaire consisting of open-ended items was applied to 40 mathematics teachers. The teachers were asked to define the open-ended question in general and the mathematical open-ended question in particular and provide examples to exemplify…