The field of education is experiencing a rapid shift as internet-enabled distance learning becomes more widespread. Often, traditional classroom teaching pedagogical techniques can be ill-suited to the online environment. While a traditional entry-level class might see a student attrition rate of 5-10%, the same teaching pedagogy in an online…

Learning mathematics has traditionally been thought of as a sequential progression. Children learn to count to 10, then to 20, and then to 100. They learn to add without regrouping and then with regrouping. The authors teach addition before multiplication and the two-times table before the six-times table. They usually teach division as a separate…

The author presents ideas for allowing LD students to discover ways to improve their problem-solving skills. Activities touch upon the influence of the environment, the need for patience and planning, factors in sequencing and organization, and the importance of thoroughness and revision. (CL)

Presents an exercise for use in political science courses on the college level that requires students to solve a frequently occurring problem--the provision of a collective good and the allocation of its costs. To solve the problem, students answer questions such as "Why do we have governments?" and "What constitutes a just policy?" (Author/DB)

Presents 21 ideas for helping children learn to do story problems in math. (SJL)

Describes a university consumer affairs course using management tools to improve problem-solving skills. The Interaction Method teaches specific material and enables learning through participation. (SK)

Collectively, technological literacy embraces everything from intelligent consumerism to concerns about environmental degradation, ethics, and elitism. Technological problem solving can have social, ecological, or technological goals and may be categorized by four types: invention, design, trouble shooting, and procedures. Every citizen should be…

In a statistics course for bachelor students in econometrics a new format was adopted in which students were encouraged to study more actively and in which cooperative learning and peer teaching was implemented. Students had to work in groups of two or three students where each group had to perform certain tasks. One of these tasks was: explaining…

Following the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) recommendation to use real data, an example is presented in which simple linear regression is used to evaluate the effect of the Montreal Protocol on atmospheric concentration of chlorofluorocarbons. This simple set of data, obtained from a public archive, can…

Formal learning usually takes place in a physical classroom. An extension of learning process may continue to occur in a conventional setting where learners get together physically after class hours. In other words, learning may take place within particular zones. Vygotsky's idea of zone of proximal development (ZPD) suggests that learning may not…

A method of instruction is presented in which learners construct their own understanding by engaging in experiments directed to solving specified problems. The method is based on how successful inventors learn and create new inventions.

Most mathematical problems can be solved using different methods. We tested the effectiveness of presenting more than one solution method by means of worked-out examples. In Experiment 1, a 2x3-factorial design was implemented ("multiple solutions": multiple/uniform; "instructional support": none/self-explanations/instructional explanations).…

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,…

In this article we present a structured set of Design Patterns (DPs) that deals with tracking students while they solve problem in specific domains such as programming or mathematics. Our collection of 17 DPs yields a three step approach: First step: to collect and analyze information on each student for each exercise; Second step: to build a…

Calculation of the percentage of work completed when the edges of jigsaw puzzles have been assembled provides interesting problems. (SD)