The paper describes two versions of an inquiry-based activity in geometry, designed as a game between two players. The game is inspired by Hintikka's semantic game, which is a familiar tool in the field of logic to define truth. The activity is designed in a dynamic geometry environment (DGE). The inquiry is initially guided by the game itself and…

Problem solving is a critical feature of highly quantitative physical science topics, such as chemical kinetics. In order to solve a problem, students must cue into relevant features, ignore irrelevant features, and choose among potential problem-solving approaches. However, what is considered appropriate or productive for problem solving is…

We report our qualitative study of twenty-four students enrolled in the second-semester of a second-year undergraduate (sophomore-level) organic chemistry course, Organic Two. We asked the research participants to propose the product and electron-pushing mechanism of elementary mechanistic steps in the absence and presence of the corresponding…

While a vast body of research has identified difficulties in students' understanding about forces and acceleration and their related alternative conceptions, far less research suggests ways to use students' alternative conceptions to enhance conceptual understanding of a specific fundamental concept. This study focused on distinguishing between…

This chapter describes how Salt Lake Community College established an ePortfolio program to help students develop critical and analytic thinking skills, and to assess their proficiency in general education.

In contrast to a world that often feels filled with madness and disillusion, education is associated with reason and redemption. Yet from a psychoanalytic perspective, such positivity in relation to education suggests a fantasmatic dimension -- a refusal of the inevitable dislocations that prevent life from being harmonious and complete. In this…

This article explores facilitating meaningful mathematics discourse, one of the research-based practices described in "Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All." Two tools that can support teachers in strengthening their classroom discourse are discussed in this, another installment in the series.

There is general agreement that humans represent numerical, spatial, and temporal magnitudes from early in development. However, there is disagreement about whether different magnitudes converge within a general magnitude system and whether this system supports behavioral demonstrations of cross-magnitude interactions at different developmental…

This project aimed to develop an engaging formative assessment that simulates the social and dialogic processes that are often missing in traditional instruction and assessment of argumentation. In this article, we describe the design of an argumentative reasoning task within a scenario-based assessment enhanced with game elements…

Intelligence typically is defined as consisting of "adaptation to the environment" or in related terms. Yet, it is not clear that "general intelligence" or g, traditionally conceptualized in terms of a general factor in a psychometrically-based hierarchical model of intelligence, provides an optimal way of defining intelligence…

Only knowledge is not sufficient to make students succeed in the world. Students need to attain 21st century skills like problem-solving, creativity, innovation, metacognition, communication etc. to endure in the modern world. Problem-solving skill is one of the fundamental human cognitive processes. Whenever students face a situation where they…

Relational reasoning is a hallmark of human higher cognition and creativity, yet it is notoriously difficult to encourage in abstract tasks, even in adults. Generally, young children initially focus more on objects, but with age become more focused on relations. While prerequisite knowledge and cognitive resource maturation partially explains this…

A surprising conversation with her young daughter inspired author Brandie Bohney to incorporate mentor texts to help students make sense of convention rules. Since struggling and reluctant readers tend to also be struggling and reluctant writers, the author designed activities that would concentrate on the conventions students most needed to…

Young children often endorse explanations of the natural world that appeal to functions or purpose--for example, that rocks are pointy so animals can scratch on them. By contrast, most Western-educated adults reject such explanations. What accounts for this change? We investigated 4- to 5-year-old children's ability to generalize the form of an…

Analogical reasoning was investigated among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) without intellectual disabilities and typical development (TD). Children were asked to select one of two targets in two conditions: (1) with and without spatial structure similarity; (2) with and without a perceptual distractor. Results demonstrate that…