This article explores the pedagogical potential of African indigenous games, focusing on Kgati, a traditional skipping game, for the teaching of number patterns in a Grade 4 rural South African primary school. The article is framed within ongoing conversations about the value of indigenous knowledge systems and the promotion of culturally responsive pedagogies that affirm learners’ identities and local contexts. The theoretical ideas of horizontal and vertical mathematisation provided the basis for the study and are used to analyse the data, with horizontal mathematisation found to be the main feature of the observed Kgati-based lesson. This single case study, drawing on observational and video data collected from a mathematics lesson, investigates the way in which indigenous games can enhance mathematical understanding and learner engagement. A total of 14 teachers were involved in the project, but only one teacher’s lesson is reported on in this article. The findings reveal that learners respond enthusiastically to the incorporation of Kgati, displaying enjoyment and participation. However, the study also highlights a gap in transferring these informal skipping activities to formal written tasks, where some learners continued to struggle with abstract representations and the associated terminology of number patterns. It is recommended that teachers use Kgati and other indigenous games not only to introduce lessons but as a rich source of material for more abstract levels of mathematics, creating stronger links between the game and formal curriculum content.
Narrative contexts are increasingly used to frame early science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning, yet little is known about how children of different ages respond to the same story world. This design-based study examined the scientific process skills, problem-solving strategies, and curiosity–exploration behaviors of 30 children aged 3–6 years, in three age groups, during four weeks of STEM activities built around Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, together with the views of 15 preschool teachers. A seven-dimension observation form, an activity evaluation form, semi-structured teacher interviews, field notes, and children’s products were analyzed descriptively and thematically and integrated in a joint display. Observation scores increased in all three age groups. The largest gain appeared among 4–5-year-olds, whereas most 5–6-year-olds reached the high-performance band, suggesting a ceiling tendency. Across sources, children moved from handling materials by their surface features toward predicting, testing, redesigning, and explaining their solutions, and their curiosity became more analytical with age. Teachers judged the activities feasible but asked for ready-to-use plans, age-appropriate materials, and visual supports. The study proposes five design principles for age-sensitive story-based STEM. Because no control group was used, these within-group patterns are descriptive and cannot be attributed to the activities alone.
With the advancement and popularization of information and communication technologies (ICTs), Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) has emerged as an important pedagogical approach in higher education. To improve students' learning outcomes in CSCL practices, it is essential for educators to understand the factors that influence cognitive presence in the learning environment. This study investigated the relationships among teaching presence, digital skills, and cognitive presence, and the mediating effect of digital skills on the relationship between teaching presence and cognitive presence among undergraduate students in China. This study employed a quantitative research methodology, collecting data through online questionnaires and analyzing the data primarily using structural equation modeling (SEM). The research findings revealed that teaching presence positively influences both digital literacy and cognitive presence. Furthermore, digital skills positively affect cognitive presence. Additionally, digital skills play a partial mediating role between teaching presence and cognitive presence. The findings of this study provide higher education educators with a novel perspective for implementing more effective CSCL practices. Specifically, this study integrates three interrelated dimensions, including teaching presence, digital skills, and cognitive presence, and underscores digital skills as an important mediating factor that bridges teaching presence and cognitive presence.
The aim of this study is to examine how eighth-grade students use symbols and algebraic relationships, patterns and generalization, and multiple representations in geometry and measurement tasks within the framework of algebraic thinking, and to identify the conceptual difficulties that emerge during this process. In the study, algebraic thinking was addressed through the components of symbols and algebraic relationships, patterns and generalization, and multiple representations. The study was conducted using a basic qualitative research design. The data were collected through clinical interviews, video recordings, and student worksheets from six eighth-grade students attending a public school with a middle socio-economic profile. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that students’ algebraic thinking levels differ markedly in geometry and measurement tasks in terms of their ways of using and interpreting formulas, simplifying algebraic expressions, constructing equations appropriate to verbal situations, interpreting the meanings of literal expressions, making generalizations for near and far terms in patterns, and transitioning between representations.
