Educators are becoming increasingly sensitive to accommodating the needs of students from diverse backgrounds in their classes while ensuring that learning occurs. Group work often is the vehicle chosen to stimulate participation and positively affect learning. In this paper, we describe the development of parallel case studies related to…

Presents: (1) a list of ideas for teaching problem-solving; (2) a review of a problem-solving book used in medical education; and (3) a discussion of an approach called problem-based learning. (DH)

This book illustrates how problem-based learning (PBL) can enliven curriculum and lesson planning by encouraging students to play a more central role in their own learning process. It provides a framework for efficiently and effectively teaching problem-solving skills, tapping children's interests and previous knowledge, and making the curriculum…

This guide contains 12 practical tools to help educators link instruction in Creative Problem Solving (CPS) with today's focus on authentic assessment. It offers a variety of practical, reproducible instruments and checklists for use in evaluating students' knowledge of CPS concepts and tools, assessing students' attitudes about CPS and their…

A study compared results of 2 teaching methods, traditional Socratic method (22 students) and a problem-based curriculum (35 students) in a University of Kentucky medical school surgery clerkship. Results showed the problem-based method resulted in similar knowledge level but improved clinical problem-solving skills. (Author/MSE)

We describe an innovative bioinformatics course developed under grants from the National Science Foundation and the California State University Program in Research and Education in Biotechnology for undergraduate biology students. The project has been part of a continuing effort to offer students classroom experiences focused on principles and…

A protein lacking one of the 20 common amino acids is a protein lipogram. This open-ended problem-based learning assignment deals with the evolution of proteins with biased amino acid composition. It has students query protein and metabolic databases to test the hypothesis that natural selection has reduced the frequency of each amino acid…

Students in the Electronics Engineering Technology program at Pennsylvania College of Technology designed and built a computerized dynamometer platform for testing dc brushless motors. As the capstone experience for EET-320, Measurement and Tests course, students were divided into teams of four and were given three weeks to complete the project.…

Schools are raising standards to improve academic and technical achievement and intellectual growth for all groups of students, particularly at-risk students. This newsletter contains tools and strategies that school leaders and teachers are using successfully to help students meet higher expectations. It organizes the techniques into five…

A law professor explains how he came to view legal problem solving as the driving concept in law school curriculum design and draws on personal experience and a survey of students concerning teaching methods in a commercial law course. He outlines six curriculum design principles for teaching legal problem solving. (MSE)

Review of experimental evidence concerning the effectiveness of problem-based learning suggests that the approach may not improve content-free problem solving; may initially reduce learning levels but fosters long-term retention; may enhance transfer of concepts and integration of concepts into clinical problems; enhances intrinsic interest of…

A study investigated differences in National Board of Medical Examiners Part I scores for students at the College of Human Medicine (Michigan) in two preclinical medicine curricula, one problem based and one traditional, during four distinct periods. Results illustrate the difficulty of comparing the curricula, given revisions over time. (MSE)

Bioinformatics is one of the fastest growing scientific areas over the last decade. It focuses on the use of informatics tools for the organization and analysis of biological data. An example of their importance is the availability nowadays of dozens of software programs for genomic and proteomic studies. Thus, there is a growing field (private…

General-education science courses should provide students with a foundation of knowledge about how the natural world works, a clear understanding of the nature of science and scientific inquiry, and an appreciation for the relationship between science and society. This chapter suggests a variety of approaches to engage students in their own…

The problem-centered learning model for gifted students is described and applied to development of learning experiences that are organized around exploration of past, present, and future perspectives of trends, problems, events, and phenomena in the social sciences. Ways to use problem-centered learning in regular classrooms, special programs for…