Background: Fiber crafts occupy a vital position in technology innovation and present a promising space for computer science education, which continues to face lopsided participation. It remains unclear whether and how fiber crafts can become a context for computational learning and what role different materials play with the risk to miss…

Background: Recent alternative concepts of school knowledge emphasize knowledge creation via networks of learning around real-world phenomena. We studied entrepreneurship education as an example of new epistemic activity which opens institutional boundaries for active engagement with society in learning. Methods: We used a case-study strategy and…

This article concerns the synergy between science learning, understanding complexity, and computational thinking (CT), and their impact on near and far learning transfer. The potential relationship between computer-based model construction and knowledge transfer has yet to be explored. We studied middle school students who modeled systemic…

Responsible citizenship and sound decision-making in today's information age necessitate an appreciation of the role of uncertainty in the process of generating data-based scientific knowledge. The latter calls for coordinating between different types of uncertainties, related to three types of relevant reasoning: statistical, scientific, and…

While many view learning as a process of reducing learners' uncertainty, research suggests that instruction that is uncertain can promote learning and transfer better than instruction that is certain. In addition, research on curiosity suggests that uncertainty is a key trigger of curiosity, which in turn can facilitate learning. However,…

The present study examines the effectiveness of incorporating worked examples with prompts for self-explanation into a middle school math textbook. Algebra 1 students (N = 75) completed an equation-solving unit with textbooks either containing the original practice problems or in which a portion of those problems were converted into a combination…

Learning algebra is difficult for many students in part because of an emphasis on the memorization of abstract rules. Algebraic reasoners across expertise levels often rely on perceptual-motor strategies to make these rules meaningful and memorable. However, in many cases, rules are provided as patterns to be memorized verbally, with little overt…

This article examines formative interventions as we understand them in cultural-historical activity theory and reflects on key differences between this intervention research tradition and design-based research as it is conceived in the learning sciences tradition. Three projects, including 2 Change Laboratories, are analyzed with the help of…

This study uses a new communicational lens that conceptualizes the activity of learning mathematics as interplay between mathematizing and identifying in order to study how the emotional, social, and cognitive aspects of learning mathematics interact with one another. The proposed framework is used to analyze the case of Idit, a girl who started…

The learning sciences community's interest in learning analytics (LA) has been growing steadily over the past several years. Three recent symposia on the theme (at the American Educational Research Association 2011 and 2012 annual conferences, and the International Conference of the Learning Sciences 2012), organized by Paulo Blikstein, led…