This paper situates a critical review of studies that we have conducted within the broader research literature to analyze the affordances of integrating modeling within disciplinarily-integrated games from computational thinking and science as practice perspectives. Across the studies, the analyses pursue two themes: (a) the role of agent-based…

By the time physics students receive their PhDs, they have a broad understanding of many areas of physics and in-depth knowledge in a specific subfield. They have developed a comprehensive knowledge of mathematics, modeling, and programming. Graduate students in physics also develop skills in areas not specifically related to physics and not…

This design case describes design decisions and their impacts during three redesigns of an educational game called the "Rocks and Minerals Challenge." This game was developed as a laboratory supplement for the rocks and minerals component of a university-based geology course. The game has evolved through three distinct design phases:…

Due to the fundamental differences between traditional education and massive open online courses (MOOCs), and because of the ever-increasing popularity of the latter, more research is needed to understand current and future trends in MOOCs. Although research in the field has grown rapidly in recent years, one of the main challenges facing…

Schools around the globe increasingly realized the importance of technology and its application in the education system. To guarantee a successful educational innovation, schools seek out different parties for valuable opinions. Among them, parents are the important feedback providers, because their attitudes are influential on children's academic…

There are millions of MOOC participants who vary in gender, age, educational level, employment status, intentions, etc. Although MOOC participants' characteristics have been studied, there is still a lack of knowledge of the divergence between the participants and completers of MOOCs with different levels of difficulty. The term 'level of…

Research has yet to reach a definitive consensus on whether or how bilingualism confers benefits on Executive Function (EF): numerous studies show an EF advantage for bilinguals over monolinguals, while others indicate no significant differences. These inconsistencies demonstrate that the mechanisms behind a potential bilingualism-to-EF…

This literature review synthesized current research on preservice and in-service programs that improve K-6 teachers' attitudes, self-efficacy, or knowledge to teach computing, coding, or computational thinking. A review of current computing training for elementary teachers revealed 21 studies: 12 involving preservice teachers and nine involving…

This paper examines the ways in which current affairs related to diversity and difference, nationally and globally, are represented to Australian children in children's digital news media and through family discussions. The discussion is based on qualitative research that explores parents' views and practices in addressing news media and diversity…

Flipped classrooms are an instructional strategy that is becoming popular in educational contexts, particularly higher education. The principle of Flipped Classroom is that events that have traditionally taken place inside the classroom now take place outside the classroom and vice versa. Various studies have reported increased student performance…

Background and Context: Learners struggle with conceptual understanding of introductory programming concepts such as variables, expressions, and loops. Objective: We examine whether and how designed activities for conceptual exploration support preliminary engagement with and learning of foundational and often hard-to-grasp programming concepts…

Recent years have brought the need for new pedagogical approaches that appeal to the involvement and participation of learners in the learning process. One of these approaches is the flipped classroom, which gives to learners the possibility to prepare for the next class, through pre-recorded video lectures and close-ended problems. Many studies…

How to support students in programming learning has been a great research challenge in the last years. To address this challenge, prior works have mainly focused on proposing solutions based on syntactic analysis to provide students with personalized feedback about their grammatical programming errors and misconceptions. However, syntactic…

One of the main outcomes of the current period is to decrease in the cost and energy of accessing the information due to rapid growing of internet and Information Technologies. Therefore, transferring online courses to users via e-learning platforms has became more and more preferred in recent years. This paper aims to investigate the effect of an…

As new introductory block-based coding applications for young students to learn basic computer science concepts, such as, loops and conditionals, continue to increase in popularity, it is necessary to consider the best method of teaching students these skills. Many of these products continue to exhibit programmatic misconceptions of these concepts…