Reasoning with evidence while modeling: Successes at the middle school level

Mathematical Reasoning at Pre - School Level

Reasoning about the seasons: middle school students' use of evidence in explanations

This study examines the ways in which middle school students approach problems which require scientific reasoning about seasonal change. Pre/post instructional assessments with students from five classrooms (N=38) showed significant improvement in understanding of the seasons though less than a third could be classified as having the scientific mental model. Students’ limited use of observable ...

Level-k Reasoning in School Choice

Many cities use centralized algorithms to assign children to public schools. Recently some cities switch from a manipulable algorithm called Boston Mechanism to a strategy-proof algorithm called Deferred Acceptance. The effect of the switch is not well understood, especially when evidence shows that parents often have different abilities to manipulate BM. In this paper I use the level-k model t...

Developing strategic and reasoning abilities with computer games at primary school level

The paper reports a small-scale, long-term pilot project designed to foster strategic and reasoning abilities in young primary school pupils by engaging them in a number of computer games, mainly those usually called mind games (brainteasers, puzzlers, etc.). In this paper, the objectives, work methodology, experimental setting, and tools used in the project are outlined, together with an analy...

Qualitative modeling for middle-school students

Qualitative modeling offers the potential for engaging middleschool students in scientific modeling. This paper discusses the design decisions underlying VModel, a qualitative modeling environment that has been used in several studies in Chicago Public School classrooms. We discuss how these decisions were influenced by the constraints imposed by the conceptual development of the students and t...