Author and educator Jason McKenna describes how teaching STEM education in his elementary school changed his classroom and his life, improving his students' and his own approaches to problem solving, collaboration, and general motivation to learn. Offering examples, tried and tested classroom projects, and collaborative strategies, this innovative…

Courses: Communication and Conflict. Objectives: Through the use of a game-based framework, students will build intrinsic motivation to engage with course material and course content, and will engage their critical-thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills in relation to conflict management over the length of the course. A list of…

Gaming, an integral part of many students' lives outside school, can provide an engaging platform for focusing students on important disciplinary core concepts as an entry into developing students' understanding of these concepts through science practices. This article highlights how S'cape can be used to support student learning aligned with the…

Using data for school improvement is a key goal of Race to the Top, and now is the time to make data-driven school improvement a priority. However, many educators are drowning in data. Boost your professional learning community's ability to translate data into action with this new book from Pam Robbins and Robert T. Hess. "The Data Toolkit"…

The author was asked to develop a list of actions that teachers could take to build students' mathematics abilities. Too many students fail to graduate and fail to pass state assessments as a result of weak mathematics skills. Even many students who do graduate leave high school lacking sufficient understanding of mathematics to pass college…

Project-Based Learning (PBL) connects standards-based content to real-world scenarios through the use of projects to improve student achievement. By engaging students in authentic problems that do not have a predetermined solution, students learn both subject matter and critical 21st-century skills. This "Focus On" addresses what…

This book offers a collection of games for K-8 students that will enliven instruction, boost student motivation, and enhance learning at school or at home. It features in- and out-of-desk activities to motivate and engage students, promote teamwork, build skills, and enhance interactive problem solving. The book includes hundreds of tips on how to…

Using the design and production of a ceramic container as a student activity, the authors present a method to involve industrial arts students in creative problem solving. Students are provided with a problem that requires them to inventory their industrial arts facilities and available materials to solve the problem. (CT)

Describes how the authors used process drama as a tool by which students assume the persona of characters in a literary text and improvise what the characters might say and how they might react in challenging situations. Discusses how students created modern dramatic interpretations of traditional texts in order to solve problems that parallel…

Points out the importance of motivation in student learning and the difficulties of maintaining motivation among students. Makes some suggestions for keeping students motivated. (YDS)

Use of a checkbook can hook even the most reluctant mathematics students into learning mathematical and problem-solving skills. (CB)

Three types of mathematics relevance are discussed: vicarious, artificial and long-term. Using mathematics to make things happen, solving a real problem, and planning an event are then described. (MNS)

Intermediate and junior high school students became very involved with this learning activity which involved detective work. Working in groups, students had to solve a riddle based on a sequence of clues. The answer to each set of clues was either a person, an event, or a place. (RM)

Four stages of problem solving are believed to occur in programing. Spirolaterals are discussed as specific examples of programing activity that have mathematical and programing interest. The BASIC programing language is used on the Apple II computer to provide examples of possible solutions to the problems posed. (MP)

Good computer simulations are those which make good use of the capability of the computer and which promote student decisions based on logic, observation, and their knowledge of the real world. (MP)