Despite Singapore's excellent science achievements in international benchmark tests such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), little is known about Singaporean children's (aged 4-8) emerging science conceptions as formal science schooling begins at Grade 3…

Getting students adopt the habits of mind specific to many disciplines can be seen as an anchor that will support them to solve the problems in their daily lives. Starting from this premise, a new subject, featuring the habits of mind and how to use and improve them in educational environments seems to worth thinking on. This article describes an…

Gestures such as finger counting, pointing, and touching have been found to facilitate mathematical development in preschool and school-aged children. However, little is known about the types of mathematically related gestures used by parent-toddler dyads to facilitate early mathematics learning during the first 3 years of life. A total of 24…

Experts are more proficient in manipulating and translating between multiple representations (MRs) of a given concept than novices. Studies have shown that instruction using MR can increase student understanding of MR, and one model for MR instruction in chemistry is the chemistry triplet proposed by Johnstone. Concreteness fading theory suggests…

This article examines prospective elementary teachers' conceptions of unitizing with whole numbers and fraction concepts and operations throughout a semester-long mathematics content course. Student work samples and classroom conversations are used to illustrate the types of unitizing understandings that prospective teachers bring to teacher…

As China and the United States become the top two carbon emitters in the world, it is crucial for citizens in both countries to construct a sophisticated understanding of energy consumption issues. This interview study examines how U.S. and Chinese students compare in explaining and arguing about two critical energy consumption issues: burning…

This research analyzed how fractions are taught in the fourth grade of elementary school in Flanders. Analysis centered on the presence of five features of instruction recommended by research on teaching and learning fractions (i.e., multiple solution pathways, linking representations, estimation and justification of the solution, collaboration,…

It has been established that both tutors and tutees gain from tutoring sessions. However, tutors' benefits may be enhanced or limited depending on the type of behaviours they perform during the tutoring sessions. Although behaviours enhancing both tutor and tutee learning can be promoted by training, generalized tutor training models that are…

The purpose of this study was to investigate three second-year graduate students' awareness and understanding of the relationships among the "big ideas" that underlie the concept of derivative through modeling tasks and Skemp's distinction between relational and instrumental understanding. The modeling tasks consisting of warm-up,…

The authors present three strategies for making sense of students' mathematical thinking. These lenses make the abstract idea of "making sense of student thinking" more manageable and concrete. We start by taking an initial look at a student's idea, going deeper, and finally looking across several ideas.

How does deep conceptual change occur when students play well-designed educational games? To answer this question, we present a case study in the form of a microgenetic analysis of a student's processes of knowledge construction as he played a conceptually-integrated digital game (SURGE Next) designed to support learning about Newtonian mechanics.…

As China and the United States become the top two carbon emitters in the world, it is crucial for citizens in both countries to construct a sophisticated understanding of energy consumption issues. This interview study examines how U.S. and Chinese students compare in explaining and arguing about two critical energy consumption issues: burning…

Although interview formats support rich data collection in conceptual change studies, interview formats limit sample sizes. This study explores the possibility of using constructed-response formats as an alternative or supplement for collecting similarly rich data across larger pools of subjects in conceptual change studies. While research in…

Two different video-based procedures for presenting the passage of time (how long a step lasts) were examined. The two procedures were presented within the framework of video prompting to promote independent multi-step task completion across four young adults with moderate intellectual disability. The two procedures demonstrating passage of the…

This study examined how evidence of students' mathematical understanding was influenced by elementary schoolteachers' enactment of instructional practices emphasized during a mathematics professional development program. Videos and field notes were collected during lessons for two teachers from the program and two matched comparison teachers.…