The teaching and learning in Indonesian elementary schools focus both on students’ concept mastery and character development.  Teachers are encouraged to implement a learning model that integrates character values and yet promote learning interest.  This study was aimed at investigating the mathematics learning interest of grade three elementary school students through the integration of thematic learning with character education, referred to as the character-integrated thematic learning model. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, this study involved 70 students and employed a questionnaire to obtain data, which were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. Descriptively, the average scores of students' learning interest before and after the implementation of the character-integrated thematic learning model are respectively 117.54 and 140.69 with the gain index of 0.44 in the fair category. While score obtained for thematic learning model are 116.11 and 120.23 with the gain index of 0.07 in the low category. The results of the statistical inference analysis using the independent sample t-test were obtained t-count of 4.98 > t-table of 1,667. This indicates that there has been a significant increase in students’ learning interest scores with the implementation of character-integrated thematic learning model. Thus, this learning model can be applied to pay attention to the development of student’s character which has an impact on increasing student’s learning interest.

Industrial revolution 4.0 is currently present in various countries, including Indonesia. Indonesia responded quickly through technological developments, especially education. The actions of the Indonesian government to deal with industrial 4.0 are contained in the 4C principle, one of which is Critical Thinking. The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning approach has become an alternative in building critical thinking skills, especially in science learning. The purpose of this study is to quantitatively measure the impact of the STEM-inquiry model based on the K-13 Indonesian Curriculum towards critical thinking skills of 15-16 years old students. This study employed quasi-experimental with non-equivalent control group design at SMAN 1 (State Senior High School) Padang Cermin, Lampung, Indonesia. The research subjects consisted of 50 students. The critical thinking skill was measured through 10 items of an essay question on the momentum and impulse material. Based on the results of the non-parametric statistical hypothesis test Mann Whitney, the significance level of 0.004 was obtained (sig <0.05). The results of the hypothetical test showed that the student's critical thinking skills before and after using the STEM-based inquiry model were different. It can be concluded that the application of the STEM-based inquiry model was effective in increasing students' critical thinking skills.

The aim of this study is to find out the influence of online project collaborative learning and achievement motivation on problem-solving ability in the area of citizenship. This study uses a quasi-experimental design. The total of study subjects is 71 students of higher education; consist of 36 students as the experimental group and 35 students as the control group. Data of problem-solving ability is obtained by using an essay test, while data of achievement motivation is obtained by using a questionnaire. Data analysis is done with ANOVA (Analysis of Variance). The study results show that online based-project collaborative learning strategy has a positive influence on civic problem-solving ability. There is a difference in civic problem-solving ability between students with high achievement motivation and students with low achievement motivation. Online project collaborative learning strategy and achievement motivation interact in influencing the civic problem-solving ability of students. It is recommended that further study corroborate this finding by testing again the effectiveness of using online-based project collaborative strategy in the aspect of problem-solving in a similar field of study.

Transcript Based Lesson Analysis (TBLA) is a transcript-based learning analysis method developed at Nagoya University, Japan. This new method is believed to justify the success of instructional design planned by the teacher. So far, the success of learning design has been reflected in student learning outcomes, even though the learning outcome data are not sufficient to provide an overview of the actual classroom conditions. This study aims to analyse the communication patterns in learning Chemistry using the TBLA method. This research is a descriptive qualitative study that analysed the lesson of Chemical Bonds and Carbon Atoms Characteristics, which were conducted in two Senior High Schools in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. The data were collected using observation and documentation study. The lessons recorded using cameras and camcorders devices were transcribed and analysed using the Excel program based on the number of words spoken by teachers and students and the frequency of keywords in learning chemistry. The data were transformed into graphs. The results showed that analysis using TBLA provided integrated information about communication patterns and classroom quality. In these two classes, communication pattern occurs in Chemistry learning was teacher-student interaction only. The multi-ways transactions pattern has not occurred. The low quality of teacher questions and the incomplete deep learning phase in learning chemistry caused the expected multi-directional transaction communication has not been conducted. The result implies that TBLA is an effective tool to reflect on teacher practices and improve their teaching process for better instructional practices.

We investigated the effects of just-in-time guidance at various stages of inquiry learning by novice learners. Thirteen participants, randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 8) or control (n = 5) group, were observed as they learned about DC electric circuits using a web-based simulation. Just-in-time instructional prompts to observe, predict, explain, systematically test, collect evidence, and generate rules were strongly associated with diagnosing and correcting misconceptions, and constructing correct scientific concepts. Students’ repeated use of predictions, systematic testing, and evidence-coordinated reasoning often led to formulating new principles, generalizing from observed patterns, verifying comprehension, and experiencing “Aha!” moments. Just-in-time prompts helped learners manage embedded cognitive challenges in inquiry tasks, achieve a comprehensive understanding of the model represented in the simulation, and show significantly higher knowledge gain. Just-in-time prompts also promoted rejection of incorrect models of inquiry and construction of robust scientific mental models. The results suggest ways of customizing guidance to promote scientific learning within simulation environments.

The progressive integration of mobile technology in the classroom is generating new scenarios to innovate teaching methods. The aim of this study was to analyse the perceptions of university students toward the use of Socrative and its implications in gamified learning situations. This is a descriptive-survey investigation, complemented with content analysis techniques. The data were collected using a questionnaire designed ad hoc by Quiroga-Estévez et al. and structured interviews. The sample consisted of undergraduate students (n=472) of the degree of Primary Education from the Faculty of Education Sciences of a Spanish university. The results show significant changes in the learning process of the students, in social relations and in the teaching methodology.

This paper explores misconceptions and errors (M/Es) of eighth-grade students in Nepal with a quasi-experimental design with nonequivalent control and experimental groups. The treatment was implemented with teaching episodes based on different remedial strategies of addressing students' M/Es. Students of control groups were taught under conventional teaching-learning method, whereas experimental groups were treated with a guided method to treat with misconceptions and errors. The effectiveness of treatment was tested at the end of the intervention. The results showed that the new guided treatment approach was found to be significant to address students' M/Es. Consequently, the students of experimental groups made significant progress in dealing with M/Es in mathematical problem-solving at conceptual, procedural, and application levels.

This study addresses the effectiveness of learning via educational software. Recent decades have seen the integration of technologies, which are changing teaching and transforming teachers into mediating, facilitating, and guiding figures by means of digital learning methods that serve as a major tool in schools, colleges, and universities. The current study focuses on instruction provided within the Israeli Air Force and examined the effectiveness of instruction provided via educational software in terms of learning products: Bloom’s revised taxonomy, Te’eni’s affective-cognitive model of organizational communication and the STEM model. We randomly divided the learners into three groups who studied the same topic: one group studied with the educational software only, the second with the educational software together with an instructor, and the third with an instructor who used a presentation. The learners took a test and four months later they took another test to examine the effectiveness of the instruction over time. The research results show that the recall levels and performance levels on the tests were almost identical in all groups, but in the categories of understanding and applying the addition of an instructor strongly contributed to achievements: Those who received instruction via educational software achieved the best results in the understanding category, while those who studied with an instructor who used a presentation achieved the best results on the test with regard to application of the studied material. The findings of this study can illuminate the effectiveness of using educational software in learning processes in all educational systems.

This study aims to present the potential of Participatory Action Research (PAR) to bring together the experiences of teachers and researchers with the intention of improving teaching practices and students’ learning outcomes. Participants in the study were 7 teachers, their 160 fifths grade students, and researchers (authors). Teachers and researchers participated as partners in all collaborative activities during the period of 12 weeks.  All teachers assisted by the researcher (first author) who serves as a teacher at the same school, were involved in implementing the reciprocal teaching method (RTM) in math classes. They examined each step of the implementation of this method in order to investigate whether it has an impact on student achievement in solving mathematical word problems. Teachers observed the work of students in their classes, whereas in the joint meetings they discussed occasional ambiguities as well as issues that were most challenging for them and their students. The results showed that there was a significant improvement of the students’ results in the post-test of the mathematical word problems. The analysis of teachers' reflections highlights the benefits of collaboration within the PAR project, both for students and teachers. The study suggests that the PAR model can be used effectively within school settings as a research model, and as a pedagogical practice.

Learning in high schools has used a lot of smartphone assistance to make it easier for students to understand the material explained by the teacher. However, with the many uses of smartphones in learning, of course, it must provide positive benefits to the ability of students, especially the science literacy ability. In this study, the objectives to be achieved are to examine how much the smartphone's usability in physics learning, examine students' science literacy and examine the effect of the smartphone’s usability on students' science literacy in physics learning. The method used in this study is a quantitative method with a research design used is a one-shot case study. The data on smartphone usability is obtained using a questionnaire, and science literacy of students is obtained through on physics science literacy test. The results of this study indicate that the smartphones usability and students' science literacy in physics learning are respectively in the high and medium categories with a respective percentage of 57.20% and 36.36%. The students' science literacy is influenced by the smartphone's usability in physics learning by 34.30%. These results indicate that smartphone usability by most students is very high, but has not been able to contribute optimally to students' science literacy. Therefore, special treatment is needed in utilizing the use of smartphones in physics learning so that students' science literacy can be optimized.

This research explores how and what strategy is applied for preparing sustainable English teachers' professional development. This study utilizes lesson study strategy-based clinical supervision and quality assurance. Lesson study is a kind of action research based on a cycle base. This study is also recognized as research and development. Based on conceptual and empirical study, it is found that three grand principles of adding quality lesson study implication. Those are cycle reflection in accelerating the teachers’ competencies in English language teaching, clinical supervision nuance, a quality assurance principle by implementing the plan, do, check, and act strategy. This research successfully finds a model for preparing a prospective and sustainable professional teachers development based on lesson study, blended with the clinical supervision and a quality assurance implementation. The outputs consist of connection among professional English teachers; accelerating realization learning and teaching quality based on reflection implication; forming the open attitude and reflecting discussion and depth analysis; building a self-responsibility and awareness as professional teacher attitude; helping one each other in the professional teacher community for accelerating teaching quality by utilizing clinical supervision. Finally, the outcome is obtaining candidates of English professional teachers, prospectively and sustainably, with high-quality EFL teaching performance in national competitiveness.

This article presents the findings of an action research study that evaluated the effectiveness of differentiated instruction in the subject of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in primary education in Greek primary schools. Effective teaching poses a challenge to all educators in all educational levels. The subject of ICT poses multiple challenges to educators due to its applied nature, the limited allocated time and the diverse needs of the students. A differentiated teaching intervention was designed and applied from January to March 2020 to 113 upper elementary students from two elementary schools in Athens. The findings of the research highlight the improvement of the quality of the students’ assessment and the level of students’ active participation due to differentiated instruction. Furthermore, the strategy of flexible grouping, the technique of “thumb it up” cards and the applied differentiated working routine proved to be highly effective. Lastly, the implementation of asynchronous working combined with hierarchical learning activities proved to be challenging to the educator due to its complexity. Based on these findings, the article discusses the importance of further research in the systematic implementation of differentiated instruction in mixed ability classrooms and in multiple subjects.

The equal symbol has been used in diverse mathematical frameworks, such as arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, set theory, and so on. In mathematical terms, the equal sign has been used in fixed command of standings. The study reports on the students meaning and interpretations of the equal sign. The study involved Grade 6, 7, and 8 students in a secondary school in Alain, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Much of the earlier research done on the equal sign has focused on the primary school level, but this one focuses on middle school students. The study shows that the maximum foremost understanding of the equal sign amongst Grade 6, 7, and 8 students is a do-something, unidirectional symbol. Students realize the equal sign as an instrument for marking the response moderately than as an interpersonal symbol to associate extents.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education is regarded as one of the formulas to embracing many of our imminent challenges. STEM education benefits the learners by encouraging interest in STEM disciplines. This daunting task needs everyone’s concerted efforts in creating and innovating mathematics teachers’ classroom practices Therefore, a systematic review was conducted to identify best practices for STEM education following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) by Moher et al. (2015). The reviewed articles were published from 2016 to 2020 and accessed using the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases. Three themes for best practices were identified namely (a) core competencies encompassing 21st-century teaching skills; (b) instructional designs; and (c) requisite STEM execution. Results of PRISMA determined the dominant STEM practices were critical thinking, communication, collaboration, problem-solving, research-based pedagogy, problem-based learning and project-based learning, technological integration, accessibility, professional development and learning support, evidence of effectiveness, access to materials and practitioner support, and scalability. Mathematics teachers should determine the best STEM practices to employ even though there is a lack of studies on integrated STEM domains. When more students are interested in venturing and exploring into the field of STEM, the high demand for STEM related careers could be met by the younger generation.

Spatial thinking has roles to facilitate learners to remember, understand, reason, and communicate objects and the connections among objects that are represented in space. This research aims to analyze the spatial thinking process of students in constructing new knowledge seen from the field-independent cognitive style learners based on Action-Process-Object-Schema (APOS) theory. APOS theory is used to explore spatial thinking processes which consist of mental structures of action, process, object, and schema. This research is qualitative research with an exploratory method. It provided the students' opportunity to solve problems alternately until the method found the most appropriate subjects for the research objectives. The subjects were 2 students of Mathematics Education in the fourth semester of Universitas Muria Kudus Indonesia. The data collection techniques were started by distributing the validated and reliable spatial thinking questions, the cognitive style question, and the interview. The applied data analysis consisted of data reduction, presentation, and conclusion. The findings showed (1) spatial thinking process of holistic-external representation typed learners were indicated by the representative thinking element, abstract-illustrative figure expression to communicate and complete the tasks correctly, (2) spatial thinking process of the holistic-internal representation typed learners were indicated by the representative means, having ideas, connecting with the previous knowledge in the forms of symbols and numbers, and finding the final results correctly although incomplete.

Critical thinking skills are one of the thinking skills needed to live in the 21st century and the era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0. This study aims to develop a Virtual Classroom Critical Thinking (VC2T) Model, which is valid, practical, and effective to improve students' critical thinking skills. VC2T model has six steps: problem orientation, formulation, group discussion, analysis, result discussion, and reflection. This study is a Research & Development (R & D) involving 33 high school students in Surabaya, Indonesia. Before being tested, the VC2T Model was designed based on the theory of Plomp and Nieveen and then validated by 3 (three) experts in physics education. Data were analyzed using validity by experts, implementation of teaching with the VC2T Model, paired t-test, calculation of n-gain, effect size and percentage of student responses. The results showed that the VC2T Model is: (1) valid with an average validity score of 4.14 in the high validity category; (2) practical with an average score of implementations teaching of VC2T Model 4.26 in the outstanding category; and (3) effective as indicated by increasing of students' critical thinking skills scores which are statistically significant at alpha .05, the average n-gain is .38 in the medium category, the effect size of 6.93 is in a strong category and the average students' response is 87.59 % with outstanding category.

The cooperative learning (CL) is an advanced instructional approach that uses different motivational procedures to make instruction significant and learners more responsible. This study aimed to investigate the effects of cooperative learning on students' achievement in chemistry among the advanced level in 12-year basic education schools; it engaged a quasi-experimental design with one treatment group and a comparison group (control); the first applied cooperative learning in teaching organic chemistry while in the control group, organic chemistry was taught by the conventional teaching methods (CTM). A sample of 257 students participated in the study. The data collected used an organic Chemistry Achievement Test, and its data were analyzed using SPSS version 23.0 and MS Excel 2016. The ANCOVA results showed that learners taught using cooperative learning achieved better than their counterparts in the control group (F=78.07, df=1, 256, p<.001) with the learning gains of 16.0% in traditional methods and 53.6% of cooperative learning approach, respectively. However, there was no statistically significant difference in gender of students. It is recommended that chemistry teachers be trained on cooperative learning and encouraged to apply it in their teaching methods to enhance students' academic achievement.

Metacognition inventory supports increased awareness and self-control to improve student’s academic success, including physics. However, there are limitations to revealing the Physics Metacognition Inventory (PMI), especially in Indonesia. This study aims to explore and evaluate the psychometric properties of PMI. This survey research has involved 479 students from three high schools in Indonesia. The psychometric properties of the I-PMI were evaluated using a Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Rasch Model approach. The results show that the Indonesian Physics Metacognition Inventory (I-PMI) is collected in 6 constructs from 26 items. The validity, reliability, and compatibility tests have also been analyzed with good results. The five rating scales used have adequate functionality. This research has also presented more comprehensive information about the Physics Metacognition Inventory in the context of Indonesian culture. This study has implications for using I-PMI to assess students’ metacognition at the high school level in Indonesia and recommendations for future research.

With Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) impacting the way we learn; information and communication technologies (ICTs) play an ever-increasing role in young children’s learning making it crucial to understand the importance and challenges of using ICTs in kindergartens from teachers’ perspectives. The present study, therefore explored the perspectives of teachers in remote areas of Jordan regarding the degree of ICT use, its importance in kindergartens, and potential challenges. To achieve the objective of the study, a quantitative questionnaire was developed and distributed to 263 female kindergarten teachers in remote areas of Jordan. Results indicated that the degree of use and importance of ICTs from teachers’ perspectives was “average”. Further, the study identified several challenges that appeared to hinder teachers’ use of ICTs in kindergartens. Teachers who held a bachelor degree were significantly more likely to employ ICTs in their teaching than those who did not. Yet, there were no significant differences according to the number of training courses in ICTs and experience teachers had. Recommendations and implications for facilitating the use of ICTs in kindergarten education concluded this paper.

Numeracy is one of the essential competencies that the objectives of teaching math to primary students should be towards. However, many research findings show that the problem of “innumeracy” frequently exists at primary schools. That means children still do not feel at home in the world of numbers and operations. Therefore, the paper aims to apply the realistic mathematics education (RME) approach to tackling the problem of innumeracy, in the case of teaching the multiplication of two natural numbers to primary students. We conducted a pedagogical experiment with 46 grade 2 students who have not studied the multiplication yet. The pedagogical experiment lasted in six lessons, included seven activities and nine worksheets which are designed according to fundamental principles of RME by researchers. This is mainly a qualitative study. Based on data obtained from classroom observations and students’ response on worksheets, under the perspective of RME, the article pointed out how mathematization processes took place throughout students' activities, their attitudes towards math learning, and their learning outcomes. The study results found that students were more interested in math learning and understood the concepts of multiplication of two natural numbers.