Search

Background: Game‐based learning can frame problem‐solving as a sense‐making experience with domain‐specific tasks for school students. However, multiple challenges arise when trying to support learners in such a complex, problem‐oriented learning environment. Objectives and Methods: With an architecture‐themed mathematics learning game, we conducted two mixed‐method studies to explore the impact and design of game‐based mathematical experience on the math problem‐solving performance of middle school students. Results and Conclusions: The study findings suggested a positive impact of game‐based math experience on math problem‐solving for middle school students. Problematization‐oriented game‐based math tasks with structuring features enhanced students' reasoning with problems and channelled it to doing mathematics. Takeaways: The current research findings support the initiative to frame learning as a sense‐making experience with domain‐specific tasks and inform the design of game‐based mathematical experience and learning support. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Realistic mathematical practices frame learning as a sense‐making experience.Challenges arise when involving learners in realistic mathematical experiences driven by domain‐specific tasks. What this paper adds: Game‐based simulation of math tasks framed learning as sense‐making experience.Game‐based math experiencing promoted math contextual problem‐solving performance.Structuring features enhanced problematized experiencing with math tasks. Implications for practice and/or policy: Teachers can integrate and facilitate game‐based math experiencing in class.Efforts should be made to make game‐based math tasks meaningful for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Study: The effects of the flipped classroom (FC) on students' academic performance remain ambiguous, and the use of pre‐class videos may be one of the main factors hindering students' progress. A software package called GeoGebra has been proposed as a substitute for pre‐class videos to aid students' learning. Objective: This study investigates the effect of the FC using GeoGebra (FCG) on mathematical performance and memory among senior secondary students. Methods: One hundred and sixty students of a senior high school in China were selected. A quasi‐experimental design was implemented in which the classes were split into the intervention group (FCG), control group A (FCV) and control group B (TL) by random assignment. Pretest, Post‐test 1 and Post‐test 2 were introduced. Results and Conclusion: The results indicate that both the FCG and the FC with pre‐class videos (FCV) were more effective than traditional lectures in enhancing students' academic test scores, and that the effect of the FCG was comparable to its video counterpart, F(2, 136) = 3.752, ρ = 0.026, η2 = 0.052. Although their effects were similar, the qualitative results revealed some hidden benefits associated with the replacement of pre‐class video with GeoGebra. Furthermore, although they were equally effective in promoting students' performance in the short‐term, the long‐term effects on academic performance of both forms of FC were non‐significant when compared with traditional lectures. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Flipped classroom is an effective strategy in teaching mathematics.Among those challenges, video may be one of the main factors hindering the effect of flipped classroom. What this paper adds: GeoGebra could be an effective alternative to video.Effect between the flipped classroom using GeoGebra and the flipped classroom using video were similar.Both the flipped classroom with GeoGebra and the flipped classroom with videos were more effective than traditional lectures. Implications for practice and/or policy: Students' short‐term performance could be enhanced by visualisation provided by flipped classroom.To enhance students' long‐term performance, an appropriate amount of homework is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Providing students with worked out problem solutions is a beneficial instructional technique in STEM disciplines, and studying examples that have been worked out incorrectly may be especially helpful for reducing misconceptions in students with low prior content knowledge. However, past results are inconclusive and the effects of incorrect worked examples alone or in combination with correct examples remains unclear. Objectives: We aim to address whether studying incorrect examples alone or in combination with correct examples can support the reduction of students' fraction misconceptions, operationalized as errors made with high confidence. Methods: After incorrectly solving a sampling problem, 130 students in 4th through 11th grade in the U.S. were randomly assigned to a condition in an online problem set focused on fraction equivalence. Students studied either single‐type worked examples (i.e., correct or incorrect; n = 49) or combination‐type worked examples (correct and incorrect; n = 41) or engaged in a problem‐solving control (n = 50). Results: Studying a combination of correct and incorrect worked examples was as effective as the problem‐solving control with feedback at improving fraction equivalence knowledge and reducing the rate of high‐confidence errors. Students in both the combination condition and the problem‐solving with feedback condition outperformed those who studied either correct or incorrect worked examples alone. Conclusions: Results support the inclusion of a combination of correct and incorrect worked examples when teaching students with low prior content knowledge. Studying a combination of example types within an online tutor helps to reduce misconceptions about fractions, a topic students commonly struggle with. A problem‐solving task with corrective feedback worked equally well. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Studying worked examples of mathematical solutions improves student learning.Incorrect examples, either alone or in combination with correct examples, are particularly effective for improving learning for students with low prior knowledge in the target content.Comparing correct and incorrect examples is also effective at improving problem‐solving but this effect may be specific to those with high prior knowledge.Still unknown are the impacts of these different combinations of examples on misconceptions in particular. What this paper adds: We show that studying a combination of correct and incorrect examples reduces math misconceptions.Problem‐solving with corrective feedback within an online tutor also has this effect. Implications for practice and/or policy: Using a combination of example types will help reduce students' misconceptions about fractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Eye movement modelling examples (EMME) are demonstrations in which learners' not only see a model's (e.g., a teacher's) task performance on a computer screen (as in regular video examples) but also the model's eye movements (represented as moving coloured dots overlaid on the screen). Thereby EMME help guide learners' attention towards the relevant information and can model cognitive strategies which are otherwise unobservable for learners. Objectives: This study investigated whether EMME can help to learn deductive reasoning strategies and how the presence/absence of a teacher's verbal explanation affects learning from EMME. Methods: Secondary education students (N = 137) were randomly assigned to study video examples under one of four conditions in a 2 (EMME: yes/no) x 2 (verbal explanations: yes/no) between‐subjects design. Results and Conclusions: Results revealed only a beneficial effect of the presence of verbal explanations on performance on the practice problems, but no pretest‐to‐posttest learning gains. Implications: Seeing the teacher's eye movements does not appear to enhance learning of deductive reasoning. The presence/absence of the teacher's verbal explanation does not seem to affect learning deductive reasoning. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter?: Eye movement modelling examples (EMME) are demonstrations in which learners not only see a teacher's task execution on a computer screen (as in video examples) but also the teacher's eye movements.The eye movements in EMME were visualized as moving coloured dots overlaid on the screen recording.EMME help direct attention to relevant information and enhance learning; it is not yet known if this also applies to reasoning problems.It is unknown if and how presence/absence of a teacher's verbal explanation affects learning from EMME. What our paper adds to this?: Secondary education students watched EMME or regular video examples with/without a teacher's verbal explanation.The examples demonstrated how to solve deductive reasoning problems (adapted version of the Mastermind game).Performance and learning gains were examined and revealed no differences between conditions. The implications of study findings for practitioners: Seeing the teacher's eye movements does not appear to enhance learning of deductive reasoning.The presence/absence of the teacher's verbal explanation does not seem to affect learning deductive reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of using dynamic geometry software (GeoGebra) on the eighth‐grade students' conceptual understanding and the retention of learning regarding linear equations and slope. In this study, a quasi‐experimental design with pre‐test, post‐test and delayed post‐test was employed. This study was conducted with 52 eighth‐grade Turkish students (experimental group, n = 25; control group, n = 27). While GeoGebra software‐supported instruction was carried out in the experimental group, textbook‐based direct instruction was continued in the control group. Data were collected with the conceptual understanding test (CUT) which consists of 38 questions including open‐ended, multiple choice and fill in the blanks. CUT was applied to the experimental and control groups as a pre‐test and post‐test at both the beginning and the end of the instruction, respectively. Seven weeks after the instruction, CUT was applied to both groups as a retention test. Data were analysed through SPSS 17.0 statistical software by using a t‐test and ANCOVA test. It was indicated in the study results that GeoGebra software‐supported instruction for eighth‐grade students regarding linear equations and slope did significantly improve both their conceptual understanding and retention of learning in comparison to textbook‐based direct instruction. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic?: The subject of functions and their graphs are the basis of many mathematical concepts and subjects such as logarithm, limit, derivative and integral.It is indicated in many studies that middle‐grade students have some misconceptions and difficulties in learning the concept of a straight line and slope.It was determined in previous studies conducted at different grade level that using dynamic geometry software (DGS) increases students' mathematics achievement according to traditional instruction.There is a need for research investigating the effect of using GeoGebra software on eighth grade students' conceptual understanding and retention of learning regarding linear equations and slope. What this paper adds?: A quasi‐experimental design with pre‐test, post‐test and delayed post‐test was conducted.Using GeoGebra software had positive effects on eighth‐grade students' conceptual understanding regarding linear equations and slope.The learning environment with GeoGebra software increased the retention of learning. The implications of study findings for practitioners: This research provided evidence regarding the effects of using GeoGebra software on eighth‐grade students' conceptual understanding and retention of learning in mathematics.In future studies, the long‐term effects of GeoGebra on other mathematics topics and other learning outcomes within similar settings should be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]