In Japan during the 1980s, there was an interesting debate about how to teach the area of a parallelogram effectively to primary school children. Yutaka Saeki criticized the standard method, which relies on a cut-and-paste procedure. He argued that the standard method inevitably failed to convince children because it does not provide any cogent…

This study reconsidered educational materials by analyzing educators' opinions regarding handmade manipulative materials (HMMs) for children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in Japan. Instead of concurring with the view that educational materials are static and inert products, the author adopted an agential realist perspective…

Some children form an attachment to a variety of inanimate objects, such as cloths or soft toys, referred to as attachment objects. This study examined the developmental change in children's behaviours toward their attachment objects to understand the role of such objects through an online survey of 700 parents with 0- to 9-year-old children, of…

A high-school third-year or undergraduate first-semester general chemistry laboratory experiment introducing simple-cubic, face-centered cubic, body-centered cubic, and hexagonal closest packing unit cells is presented. Latex balls and acrylic resin plates are employed to make each atomic arrangement. The volume of the vacant space in each cell is…

Three-dimensional (3D) nuclear charts were created using toy blocks, which represent the atomic masses per nucleon number and the total half-lives for each nucleus in the entire region of the nuclear mass. The bulk properties of the nuclei can be easily understood by using these charts. Subsequently, these charts were used in outreach activities…

Recent studies have shown that simulation games may be useful tools for supporting foreign language education. However, much of this research has focused on games using 3D graphic technology, which entail technical requirements that may render them too complex for use in many educational contexts. Accordingly, we wanted to determine if less…

This is an account of events in a real classroom when the notion that there is a distinction between calculation by counting, and calculation by structuring is a focus for learning. Pupils have "hands-on" experiences that support their understanding of "number". The teaching "aid" might be unfashionable in…

The theme of the 38th meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME 38) and the 36th meeting of the North American Chapter of the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-NA 36) was "Mathematics Education at the Edge." Academically, the theme provides opportunities to highlight and examine…

The Japanese, Chinese, and Russian abaci are described. Policies of the Japanese Education Ministry with regard to calculation are briefly discussed. (SD)

In two experiments, an adult presented 2-year-olds with an unfamiliar solid object, either rigid or flexible, and performed an action that emphasized the object's shape or material. Children were then asked to choose an object that matched the one shown. As hypothesized, the adult's action information alone directed children to attend to relevant…

Discussed is the difference in the use of verbal explanation, identified by observations of mathematics teaching in first- and fifth-grade classrooms in Japan and the United States. The author suggests we reexamine the role of direct teaching and stress both concrete experiences and verbal explanations at the same time. (MNS)

Five classroom situations in Japanese elementary schools are described and interpreted from perspective of first four standards in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Curriculum and Evaluation Standards. Concludes that Japanese children do so well in mathematics because Japanese teachers embody essence of the standards in…