Design and design thinking are increasingly being taught across several disciplines--ranging from arts, architecture, and technology and engineering to business schools--where expertise plays a central role. A substantial corpus of literature on research in regard to design expert and design expertise has accumulated in the last decades. However,…

Pretend play leads to real-life learning. By imitating a firefighter using a horse, a doctor checking a patient's ear, or a construction worker building a skyscraper, children learn about community roles and services and feel proud and satisfied. When they pretend, children create pictures in their minds of past experiences and use their…

Purpose: Previous results show that the anesthetists' activity during the planning phase is aimed at neither identifying risks nor pinpointing the adverse events likely to occur; rather, it is to devise "manageable situations" that are adapted to their own competences. The present paper focuses on the issue of understanding how, in…

Many introductory physics courses begin with the teaching of motion and kinematics. This naturally leads to the use of constant acceleration equations to solve various problems involving common motions (free fall being a notable example). Students can sometimes get the impression that these equations are the only thing they need to remember in…

Coding is defined as the "process of assigning a code (command/rule)" (http://Techopedia.com) that allows a machine or a person to act or move (McLennan, https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/feb2017/creating-coding-stories-and-games, 2017). Though machines operated by a coding system are common in children's everyday lives, there has…

Complexity is one of the major demands of adolescents' future life as adults. To investigate adolescents' competence development in applying problem-solving strategies in complex environments, we conducted a 2-wave longitudinal study in a sample of Finnish adolescents (11-17 years old; N = 1,959 at Time 1 and N = 1,690 at Time 2, 3 years later).…

In this paper, we will first discuss two current meta-theories dealing with different, aspects of "truth". The first metatheory conceives of truth in terms of coherence (rationality, consistency): a body of knowledge is true when it contains no inconsistencies and has at least some credibility. The second metatheory conceives of truth as…

Findings from physics education research strongly point to the critical need for teachers' use of multiple representations in their instructional practices such as pictures, diagrams, written explanations, and mathematical expressions to enhance students' problem-solving ability. In this study, we explored use of problem-solving tasks for…

Critical thinking and problem solving skills are included in the IS curriculum as foundational skills. IS education researchers recognize the importance of these skills for future IS practitioners given the complexity of the technology based society and economy of the future. However, there is limited work on how these skills are best taught in…

Circle, ellipse, parabola, hyperbolic curves are defined as conic sections from the intersection of a coni with a plane at different angles. These curves can be found in different positions depending on the different angles. In this case, rotation transformation can be applied to the curves so that their major axes are brought to the horizontal…

Traditional high school physics instruction often comes across as a mere extension of the mathematics classroom to many of our students. Solving numerical physics problems using structures such as the GUESS method (given, unknown, equation, substitute, solve) doesn't help students with conceptual understanding. With the advent of physics education…

It is important to practice critical skills in the classroom in order to empower learners and to have a critical consciousness, such as critical thinking, dialogue, and problem solving. In the present study, undergraduate students' perceptions (by gender) of the practice of critical consciousness in the classroom at Taif University, Saudi Arabia…

This study explores the effects of number structure characteristics on student thinking in solving missing-value proportion problems. Prior research has documented that the presence of an integer ratio is beneficial, particularly if the integer relationship is within the same measure space. Less information on student performance is available,…

Individual differences in Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) cognitive abilities are related to individual differences in math problem solving. However, it is less clear whether cognitive abilities are associated with math problem solving directly or indirectly via math component skills and whether these relations differ across grade levels. We used…

Organic synthesis in a modern research laboratory uses state-of-the-art equipment to provide inert atmospheres, track reaction progress, and facilitate the purification of intermediates. Such facilities are not available in a high school laboratory. In this paper, synthetic organic chemistry is taken back to basics: A four step total synthesis of…