When engineering students are unable to evaluate the validity of their solutions, they are unprepared to solve complex, real-world engineering problems that require decomposition or knowledge transfer. A proper framework is key to successful implementation and can encourage more institutions to adopt problem-solving engineering labs. This paper…

Teachers are natural problem solvers, and they should be using this quality to their advantage when it comes to solving the systemic issues that plague Philadelphia's education system. Many of the articles in this issue have already gone into great detail about what is happening in Philadelphia. Torch Lytle has provided a summary of the recent…

Ideal for faculty and administrators looking to blend business education and the liberal arts, this toolkit combines exemplary syllabi from 26 leading institutions with step-by-step strategies to advocate successfully for curricular innovation. Conceived with comprehensiveness in mind, these resources cover both inspiration and implementation for…

This article, the second of a two-part series, features 11 teaching innovations presented at the 2014 Association for Business Communication annual conference. These 11 assignments included leadership and other-focused communication--detecting communication style, adaptive communication, personality type, delivering feedback, problem solving, and…

Students love a mystery. So what do America's most majestic bird, a bag of habitat clues, and a soft-shelled egg have in common? This easy-to-do inquiry activity engages students as they connect clues to problem-solve how the bald eagle reached the brink of extinction in the 1960s in the lower 48 states. It was designed to give students an…

Beginning in third grade, Pennsylvania students are required to take the Pennsylvania State Standardized Assessment (PSSA), which presents multiple-choice mathematics questions and open-ended mathematics problems. Consistent with the Communication Standard of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, while solving the open-ended problems,…

The topic of alternative energy is not only relevant to a multitude of issues today, it is also an effective vehicle for developing instruction that applies across a variety of content disciplines and academic standards. Since many of the issues associated with alternative energy are open-ended, alternative energy also lends itself to…

Involving two or more academic subjects, interdisciplinary studies aim to blend together broad perspectives, knowledge, skills, and epistemology in an educational setting. By focusing on topics or questions too broad for a single discipline to cover, these studies strive to draw connections between seemingly different fields. Cases on…

This study can be used in a geographic research methods course to show how nearest-neighbor analysis and regression analysis can be used to study various aspects of land use. An analysis of the sand, gravel, and crushed stone industry in three urban areas of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Florida illustrates the locational problems faced by…

Instructional assessment is a systematic approach to solving student academic, behavioral, and social-emotional problems by identifying the key factors that have created or are encouraging the problem. The instructional support team (IST) process emphasizes assistance to students. Assessment in IST consists of ongoing analysis of student…

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.…

This yearbook discusses instructional approaches that are consistent with the reformulation of the school mathematics curriculum by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Articles included cover: (1) Pennsylvania standards for mathematics programs (including goals, curriculum, instruction, evaluation, teachers, and…

This pre-school through grade 12 environmental education learning continuum was designed to help educators with a systematic method which develops an environmental ethic among students. It consists of: (1) preschool through third-grade activities (which stress environmental awareness and sensitivity); (2) intermediate level activities (which give…

One of the goals of quality education in Pennsylvania is to help every student acquire knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of science and technology. This publication, which focuses on the technology component of this goal, is an initial effort by a team of scientists and science educators to define technology as it should be presented in…

One of the strengths of the Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of Mathematics (PCTM) is that it gives mathematicians and mathematics educators the opportunity to exchange and contribute to each other's professional growth. The topic for this 1985 yearbook, the first of a proposed ongoing series, has been chosen to coincide with the annual PCTM…