The Tower of Hanoi is an old, popular, and engaging puzzle. It is an exceptional puzzle too considering how effective it can be in engendering multiple valuable outcomes when used as a tool for learning. One of the fundamental goals of mathematics teacher preparation is to enable the prospective teacher to develop mathematical habits of mind and…

The blue-eyed islanders puzzle is an old and challenging logic puzzle. This is a narrative of an experience introducing a variation of this puzzle on the first day of classes in a liberal arts mathematics course for non-majors. I describe an exercise that was used to facilitate the class's understanding of the puzzle.

Concepts in mathematics are often universally applicable to other fields. A critical aspect for success in high school or college is the ability to transfer content knowledge from one discipline to another. This is especially true for material learned in the sciences and mathematics. Several studies have suggested that strong mathematical skills…

To help fifth- through eighth-grade students develop their deductive reasoning skills, the author used a ten-week supplementary curriculum so that students could answer logic questions. The curriculum, a series of lessons built around language-independent logic puzzles, has been used in classrooms of fifth through eighth grades. In most cases,…

In this article, the author describes a 200-year-old ladder problem that can carry learners to high levels of mathematical thinking and activity. This problem requires learners to go from a word problem to an equation to a graph and from there to a solution. As this problem of specifics is turned into a problem using variables, technology,…

This collection of activities is designed to help students develop critical thinking skills. The activities are non-graded and can be used from upper elementary to high school. Reading levels vary from no reading required to very little reading required and can be used effectively with students who are poor readers, bilingual, or at a special…

This collection of activities is designed to help students develop critical thinking skills. The activities are non-graded and can be used from upper elementary to high school. The reading levels vary from no reading required to very little reading required and can be used effectively with students who are poor readers, bilingual, or at a special…