The current study investigates the relationship between critical thinking skills and learning styles of mentally gifted students. The participants were 225 gifted students in Turkey attending Science and Art Centres which are after-school activity centers for mentally gifted students. Participants were 9-15 years old and were attending secondary…

It is often assumed when students fidget they are not on task. Two within-subject studies challenge this assumption by testing the effect of allowing fidgeting on three types of thinking: speeded mental math (Study 1), brainstorming and memory (Study 2). Study 1 showed that student's performance on speeded math was no different when performed in a…

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau This study utilized an intervention of deep looking through implementation of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) using artwork and artifacts in area museums/galleries (Yenawine, 2014). Techniques for working with primary sources, objects, artifacts, artwork,…

As digital and physical fabrication kits become increasingly accessible to novice and youth design and maker activities, efforts are continuing to investigate ways that computing can be inclusive, accessible and culturally responsive. An effort that demonstrates promise for equity is combining multiple toolkits that tap into different affordances…

Studies that follow teachers for multiple years are unfortunately rare in educational research. To help "connect the dots" between teachers' participation in professional development meeting and student learning, I conducted a mixed-methods study that followed high school teachers in and out of a school-based professional development…

This teaching note describes the design and implementation of an activity in a 90-minute teaching session that was developed to introduce a diverse cohort of first-year criminology and sociology students to the use of documents as sources of data. This approach was contextualized in real-world research through scaffolded, student-centered tasks…

Recent scholarship on civic education has introduced some useful ways to engage students in learning about controversial topics, debating them, and participating in democratic life. However, while those are valuable tools for active citizenship, they're not sufficient. Democratic education should focus on issues that matter intensely to students'…

Kentucky's elementary social studies curriculum includes introductory knowledge in state and national history, providing an opportunity for teachers to include instruction on the influence of slavery on society before and after the Civil War, and sometimes on current events. For example, following the violent events in 2017 in Charlottesville,…

Scientific learning in schools requires not only students' ability to understand concept, but also critical thinking abilities of the students. However, the current scientific learning process is still focused on only cognitive aspects. Therefore, a teaching model or strategy that is able to support students to understand concept as well as…

Previous research has examined the use of nontraditional readings, particularly fiction, as a tool for teaching sociological concepts. Few studies have specifically looked at nonfiction monographs and ethnographies. This paper extends prior research by exploring how in-person and online book clubs using nonfiction texts can be used as a tool to…

The main purpose of this study was to investigate Taiwanese high school students' multi-dimensional self-efficacy and its sources in the domain of science. Two instruments, Sources of Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SSLSE) and Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SLSE), were used. By means of correlation and regression analyses, the relationships…

Science learning self-efficacy could be regarded as a multi-factor belief which comprises different aspects such as cognitive skills, practical work, and everyday application. However, few studies have investigated the relationships among these factors that compose science learning self-efficacy. Also, culture may play an important role in…

This paper describes an Israeli national-level research examining the extent to which admissions of elementary school students to the gifted programmes based on standardised tests are gender-fair. In the research, the gifted students consisted of 275 boys, 128 girls, and additional 80 girls who were admitted to the gifted programme through…

Experiential learning requires teacher educators to equip trainee teachers with opportunities for effective preparedness in teaching and professional subjects, co-curricular activities and in micro-teaching vital for professional development. The experiential learning opportunities, conditional knowledge, preparedness and performance during…

simSchool is a game-based, virtual, and interactive tool that allows pre-service teachers to acquire new skills while constructing knowledge through experimentation with learning situations. Pre-service teachers develop know-how--or heuristic knowledge--through repeated practice in the "Personality Plus Higher-Order Thinking" module to…