In our study, we looked for an answer to the research question "How prospective teachers comprehend the concept of a plane angle and what kind of variation there is between the conceptions? The study shows that the prospective teachers interpret the concept "plane angle" which in principle is familiar to everybody in many different…

In this paper, we have reviewed and analyzed literature textbooks at the pre-university level, respectively in the high school. In this research, we have examined the way these texts are analyzed (the pedagogical apparatus as it is otherwise called). Such work is done considering the requirements of the latter to fulfill certain competencies…

Any teacher of elementary physics can attest to the waning interest of students when all they are exposed to are boxes sliding down planes. In an effort to motivate interest, it is often useful to borrow examples from the real world. This way the students find it easy to identify the relevance of the subject matter. In addition, high-tech…

A spinning top or a spinning hard-boiled egg is fascinating to observe since both objects can remain upright for a relatively long time without falling over. If spun at sufficient speed on a horizontal surface, the spin axis rises to a vertical position and the bottom end tends to remain fixed in position on the surface. If the initial spin is…

In this paper, we present our main results of the post occupancy evaluation of thermal comfort of two primary schools constructed following the same plane, situated in two different climate zones. The first stage of the work consisted on measurements using meteorological equipments. These measurements are used to quantify the physical parameters…

The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the difficulties faced by students when working with different representations of vectors, planes and their intersections in R[superscript 3]. Duval's theoretical framework on semiotic representations is used to design a set of evaluating activities, and later to analyze student work. The…

The issue of poor statistical literacy amongst undergraduates in the United Kingdom is well documented. At university level, where poor statistics skills impact particularly on social science programmes, embedding is often used as a remedy. However, embedding represents a surface approach to the problem. It ignores the barriers to learning that…

When students think of evolution, they might imagine T. rex, or perhaps an abiotic scene of sizzling electrical storms and harsh reducing atmospheres, an Earth that looks like a lunar landscape. Natural selection automatically elicits responses that include "survival of the fittest," and "descent with modification," and with…

Friction is an important phenomenon in everyday life. All children are familiar with playground slides, which may thus be a good starting point for investigating friction. Motion on an inclined plane is a standard physics example. This paper presents an investigation of friction by a group of 11-year olds. How did they plan their investigations?…

Dynamic geometry software can help teachers highlight mathematical relationships in ways not possible with static diagrams. However, these opportunities are mediated by teachers' abilities to construct sketches that focus users' attention on the desired variant or invariant relationships. The study described in this paper looked at two cohorts of…

This paper reports on a project that examined teachers' reading identities and explored ways in which those identities were manifested in reading pedagogy and were adopted by students. The paper focuses on one purposively selected teacher and his class. Tom Ziegler's personal and pedagogical practices were deeply aligned, and his…

Traditionally, "z" is assumed to be a complex number and the roots are usually determined by using de Moivre's theorem adapted for fractional indices. The roots are represented in the Argand plane by points that lie equally pitched around a circle of unit radius. The "n"-th roots of unity always include the real number 1, and…

According to Sinclair, Pimm, and Skelin (2012), the four big ideas of high school geometry are (1) diagrams; (2) variance and invariance; (3) definitions; and (4) proofs as the culmination of the proving process. On the first day of geometry class, Wayne Nirode began a multiday activity in which students were actively involved in working with…

The present paper delves into the classroom dynamics of Biology classrooms taking into account teaching learning processes associated with some of the ethical issues in Biological Sciences. Argumentation and debate appear to be the major transactional approaches adopted by teachers for dealing with these issues. The classroom discourses emanating…

In this paper, we present a "route of activities" mainly addressed to first and second year engineering students attending the basic mathematics courses. These activities are intended to be a tool both for students and teachers. On the one hand, they should help the students to acquire a deeper understanding of the mathematical ideas and…