Research shows that epistemic cognition can support reasoning about the inclusion of diverse children. We argue that, to engage in such reasoning, children need the capacity to consider and evaluate competing knowledge perspectives (epistemic cognition) and to be cognitively flexible. Cognitive flexibility involves a subset of skills within the…

There is growing international concern about the extent to which teachers are prepared to work with an increasingly diverse student (and community) population. To date, research into the relationship between teacher preparation and preparedness to teach diverse learners has not focused on teacher educators' understandings about teaching to/about…

Cognition research has demonstrated that babies, from birth, can detect numerical correspondences and abstract properties of objects and events. However, this limited existing research is often distant from educational practice, and thus, this information may be inaccessible to early childhood educators; most of whom hold pre-Bachelor level…

This study compares the mental-state talk of infant educators in Australia and China in order to determine the nuanced differences in the ways that they use this talk with the infants in their room. Participants are 44 native English-speaking Australian educators from centres in Sydney, Australia and 30 native Chinese-speaking infant educators…

This paper reports on a study designed to examine the dialogic processes teachers used to sustain focused discussions, using questioning techniques and Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs). IWBs and their related technologies such as plasma touch screens and projected tablets have passed through several phases of implementation as classroom objects,…

As our world becomes increasingly diverse and technologically-driven, the role and identities of teachers continues to change. "Cases on Teacher Identity, Diversity, and Cognition in Higher Education" seeks to address this change and provide an accurate depiction of the teaching profession today. This thought-provoking collection of…

Advancements in technology have increased preschool children's access to the Internet. Very little research has been conducted to identify pre-school-aged children's understandings of the Internet and ramifications of being "online." Without an understanding of children's thinking about the Internet, it is difficult to provide age- and…

An educator's ability to engage in critical reflection is core to provision of high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC), and is a priority for quality improvement in Australia. This study explored the nature of critical reflection using the example of sleep-rest practices. These practices have been identified as a 'barometer of ECEC…

This paper presents findings from an on-going international study of Early Childhood (EC) teachers' and children's use of Internet of Toys (IoToys) to understand possibilities for developing children's cognitive capacities (e.g., creativity, inquiry, engineering design thinking). The study employed a Design Based Research (DBR) method, where…

Research into human decision making (DM) processes from outside of education paint a different picture of DM than current DM models in education. This pilot study assesses the use of critical decision method (CDM)--developed from observations of firefighters' DM -- in the context of primary mathematics teachers' in-class DM. Preliminary results…

Prior research shows that establishing early literacy and numeracy skills may help children achieve better outcomes in later schooling. Data from the Regional Project on Child Development Indicators (PRIDI), which focused on Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru, provided insights into four domains of child development that build the…

The relationship between experience, emotions, cognition, and learning is of increasing interest to educators and researchers who recognise that efforts to promote student engagement and learning must take into account factors beyond the purely cognitive and instrumental. The significance of experience considered as a unity in regard to child…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 13th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2016), October 28-30, 2016, which has been organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS), co-organized by the University of Mannheim, Germany, and endorsed by the…

This study examined parent cognitions and parent-infant interaction in terms of their contribution to infant development in the first 12 months. With a sample of 95 mother-infant dyads, results using structural equation modelling confirmed the expected finding that parent-infant interaction mediates the association between parent cognitions and…

Vygotsky (1986) draws attention to the interrelationship between thought and language and other aspects of mind. Although not widely acknowledged, Vygotsky (1999) also drew attention to the search for the relations between cognition and emotions. This paper discusses the findings of a study which examined imaginary scientific situations within the…