STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is a 21st century learning approach that is extremely important to students and children nowadays. Many developed countries have emphasized this approach to early childhood education (ECE). Although there are some challenges in promoting children's cognitive development in…

With the study reported on here we set about to reveal the effects of mental games on third graders' reading comprehension skills in Turkish classes. The study group comprised 71 students, 35 of whom were included in the experimental group, and 36 in the control group. The experimental group played simple to difficult mental games selected by the…

Coding learning involves cognitive control ability that enables children to coordinate behaviors according to internally maintained goals. However, such ability is still developing during early childhood and cannot reach maturity at least until late adolescence. This study aimed to test whether integrating cognitive control strategies into online…

"Patterning" is a cognitive intervention that is unknown to psychologists, but has nevertheless been taught for half a century in nearly all kindergartens and many preschools in English-speaking countries. Patterning is the understanding that a certain rule governs the sequence of items in a series. At the simplest level, if the series…

A Vygotskian approach to assessment is proposed by invoking the distinction between the development of lower and higher psychological functions. Higher psychological functions are specifically human and develop with the use of cultural tools via mediation. Accordingly, a distinction is made between tests that are based on association, which have…

This practical resource explains brain development from prenatal to age 8 with suggestions for activities educators and caregivers can use to foster children's cognitive growth. The authors begin with the basics of brain development, and the issues that affect it, and then provide information specific to infant, toddler, preschool, and…

Robotic education is a popular topic in recent years. There are robotic education courses from pre-K to K-12 and these courses claim that they support STEM education. However, the teacher's perception of these activities and needs for this education is the missing part of the chain. The aim of this study to find out the perceptions and suggestions…

How people see the world, even how they research it, is influenced by beliefs. Some beliefs are conscious and the result of research, or at least amenable to research. Others are largely invisible. They may feel like "common knowledge" (though myth, not knowledge), unrecognized premises that are part of the surrounding culture. As we…

Our research focuses on developing elementary students' mental computation skills with the help of card games. Choosing this area of study was motivated by our personal experiences, namely, that mathematics programmes of study do not lay emphasis on this aspect; there are too few hours dedicated to developing this skill, and several mental…

A total of 268 primary school children (age 8.75 ± 0.65) spent one day at a wildlife park attending environmental education aiming at high cognitive achievement and motivation alongside maintained discipline. To accomplish this at an out-of-school learning setting, we compared our preferred 'guided learning at workstations' (G) combining the…

This integrative text spotlights what educators need to know about children's cognitive development across grade levels (PreK-12) and content areas. The book provides a concise introduction to developmental neuroscience and theories of learning. Chapters on general cognitive abilities probe such crucial questions as what children are capable of…

In the quest for quality in early childhood education, it is important to explore the subtleties that define socio-culturally relevant pedagogy. A qualitative, multi-case study approach was used to explore perspectives of teachers about socio-cultural influences on their teaching in kindergarten classrooms in Ghana. Four teachers from two…

Our paper builds on the construct of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky in Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978) to analyze the relationship between students' answers and the help they receive as they construct them. We report on a secondary analysis of…

Children, 4-6 years of age, in special education kindergartens were randomly assigned to a classification training (n 45) and a comparison (n 49) group. Children in the training group were taught the Classification unit of Bright Start, whereas those in the comparison group received a regular content-oriented curriculum. Both groups were given…

Student learning communities (SLCs) are more than just a different way of doing group work. Like the professional learning communities they resemble, SLCs provide students with a structured way to solve problems, share insight, and help one another continually develop new skills and expertise. With the right planning and support, dynamic…