DBL is a novel pedagogical approach intended to improve students' conditional knowledge and problem-solving skills by exposing them to a sequence of branching learning decisions. The DBL software provided students with ample opportunities to engage in the expert decision-making processes involved in complex problem-solving and to receive…

In honor of Jim Greer, we share our recent work--a design and development study of various learning supports embedded within the game "Physics Playground." This 2-dimensional computer game is designed to help students learn Newtonian physics and uses stealth assessment to measure, in real-time, their physics understanding. The game…

Research on how epistemic beliefs influence students' learning in different contexts is ambiguous. Given this, we have examined the relationships between students' scientific epistemic beliefs, their problem solving, and solutions in a constructionist computer-simulation in classical mechanics. The problem-solving process and performance of 19…

Whereas some educational designers believe that students should learn new concepts through explorative problem solving within dedicated environments that constrain key parameters of their search and then support their progressive appropriation of empowering disciplinary forms, others are critical of the ultimate efficacy of this discovery-based…

Introduction: A way to find out how scientific thinking in children develops is to focus on the processes that are involved. As such, scientific thinking can be seen as a particular form of problem solving in which the problem solver selects a strategy from the space of possible experiments that can reveal the cause of an event. Notwithstanding…

The close relationship between charged particles and electromagnetic fields has been well known since the 19th century, thanks to James Clerk Maxwell's brilliant unified theory of electricity and magnetism. Today, electromagnetism is recognized as an essential aspect of human activity and has consequently become a major component of senior…

This study investigated the impact of different modes of scaffolding on students who are learning science through a web-based collaborative inquiry project in authentic classroom settings and explored the interaction effects with students' characteristics. The intervention study aimed to improve "domain-specific knowledge" and "metacognitive…

One goal of 21st-century education is to develop mature citizens who can identify issues, solve problems, and communicate solutions. What better way for students to learn these skills than by participating in a science and engineering fair? Fair participants face the same challenges as professional scientists and engineers, even Nobel laureates.…

From a theoretical viewpoint, educational interfaces that facilitate communicative actions involving representations central to a domain can maximize students' effort associated with constructing new schemas. In addition, interfaces that minimize working memory demands due to the interface per se, for example by mimicking existing non-digital work…

This study was designed as a confirmatory study of work on "productive failure" (Kapur, "Cognition and Instruction," 26(3), 379-424, 2008). N = 177, 11th-grade science students were randomly assigned to solve either well- or ill-structured problems in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment without the provision of any…

This study demonstrates an existence proof for "productive failure": engaging students in solving complex, ill-structured problems without the provision of support structures can be a productive exercise in failure. In a computer-supported collaborative learning setting, eleventh-grade science students were randomly assigned to one of…

A continuing challenge to the undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum is the time-effective incorporation and use of computer-based tools throughout the educational program. Computing skills in academia and industry require some proficiency in programming and effective use of software packages for solving 1) single-model, single-algorithm…

Studies the effect of gender on a computer-based approach to solving stoichiometric chemical equations. Implies that the feedback provided by the software might have had an effect on reducing the gender gap. However, upon closer examination, the results showed that the correctness means for males were higher than that for females, and the rate of…

Investigates methods for classifying problem solving strategies of high school students who studied infectious and non-infectious diseases by using a software system that can generate a picture of students' strategies in solving problems. (Contains 24 references.) (Author/YDS)

This paper reports on the formative evaluation results of the project "Enhancement of Problem Solving and Scientific Reasoning Skills through Computerized General Chemistry Modules." This project includes the design, development, and implementation of two interactive computer modules for the enhancement of mathematical and problem…