Because the goals of games and the object of school-based learning are fundamentally mismatched, efforts to integrate games into the curriculum have largely fallen flat despite the best intentions of teachers and the gaming industry. Arguing that educational game designers should be investigating ways to get education into games rather than…

A problem-based approach to the teaching of mechanical wave propagation, focused on observation and measurement of wave properties in solids and on modelling of these properties, is presented. In particular, some experimental results, originally aimed at measuring the propagation speed of sound waves in metallic rods, are used in order to deepen…

This longitudinal case study of a single school examines changes in the educational beliefs of 10 elementary-school teachers who experienced a constructivist-based trans-disciplinary curriculum (CTC). After 3 years of experiencing a CTC, which emerges through theme-oriented and project-based learning, teachers' educational beliefs had changed to…

This article describes an after-school mathematics program for Latino students. The program focuses on field trips to explore the mathematical practices of the community's businesses. The authors elaborate the project's general structure and illustrate the principles that guided the program. (Contains 3 tables.)

To prepare to teach in mathematics classrooms where children learn to justify their thinking, the teachers themselves must have experienced an environment of inquiry, communication, collaboration, and reasoning. Teacher educators strive to establish such environments for preservice teachers (PSTs) and to support their transition from rules-based…

From a review of instructional design theories, research, and practice, the author has derived his "First Principles of Instruction". In this article, he suggests a rubric for using these principles to evaluate existing instruction. The article presents a Course Evaluation form and accompanying demonstration and application rubrics that enable the…

How did Internet-supported learning environments (ISLE) impact students' critical thinking (CT) and problem solving (PS) skills in higher education? What specific indicators have been used to measure CT? What types of problems and learning approaches were chosen to assess PS skills? This paper qualitatively reviewed studies published in academic…

A basic understanding of statistical ideas, and especially the idea of statistical modelling involving exposure to statistical data analysis, is as fundamental to an understanding of modern society and its artefacts as is language literacy. Thus, statistics should become a central feature of the mathematics curriculum. This implies, among other…

The "Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge" (TPACK) framework has been used to prepare pre-service science teachers at the Public Authority of Applied Education and Training in Kuwait for ICT integration in education. Pre-service teachers worked in teams to design an ICT solution for an authentic problem they faced during in-school…

Despite of much focus on professional development aimed specifically at developing teachers' technology integration skills, rigorous studies of effective PD (professional development) are lacking. Evidence is also lacking on how these skills can best be integrated with pedagogical and content knowledge to improve student learning. The purpose of…

Career and technical education (CTE) has a promising future at Darlington (WI) High School. In this article, the author describes how a class bridge project became a real-world, project-based learning opportunity involving higher-level thinking skills that are at the core of CTE at his school. It began when a local citizen approached him at the…

In this article, the author discusses how it is time for higher education to think seriously about alternatives to the traditional undergraduate "major," which, in the large majority of cases, tends to be focused on just a single field of inquiry. The author observes that the current idea of a major (or minor) subject may have made more sense in a…

An increasing variety of professional educational and training disciplines are now problem based (e.g., medicine, nursing, engineering, community health), and they may have a corresponding variety of educational objectives. However, they all have in common the use of problems in the instructional sequence. The problems may be as diverse as a…

This study investigates fourth-year pharmacy students' experiences of problem-based learning (PBL). It adopts a phenomenographic approach to the evaluation of problem-based learning, to shed light on the ways in which different groups of students conceive of, and approach, PBL. The study focuses on the way students approach solving problem…

Students get very excited when confronted with problems that they find meaningful. Problem-based learning lets students solve problems using the strategies and tools that scientists use. While developing solutions via technological design and construction, students experience firsthand the relationship between science and technology. To capture…