Children use creative thinking processes when teachers assign ambiguous rather than specific problems. Suggestions for developing questions that encourage experiential and metaphorical thinking are offered. (DF)

Word problems can be especially difficult for elementary students. This resource provides busy teachers with a new problem for every day of the school year. Period quizzes assess how well the students are mastering the problems. Tips for working the problems are provided to the students. This is ideal for improving math skills while giving…

The first idea presented is an activity aimed at teaching students to reduce a fraction to lowest terms by looking for the greatest common factor (GCF) of the numerator and denominator. The second idea looks at ways to construct solution problems that are challenging but which do not bog pupils down. (MP)

Set concepts are used in this story about a swimming excursion in France, with "real" applications of mathematics presented. (MNS)

Offers such teaching activities as a one-line program contest, field trips, examining job openings in newspapers, and a writing activity speculating what would happen if robots did not follow Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics." Includes "Logo Goes to High School" by E. Paul Goldenberg, discussing problem-solving tasks…

To encourage students to become involved in the inventive and imaginative dimensions of biology, students are asked to invent: a useful product, way to use old newspapers, insect repellent, organism attracter, organelle separater, way to measure rate of hyphal growth, and method to measure strength of spider web. (DC)

Details of pupil exploration as to the largest number of sides that a polygon could have on a geoboard are presented. The problem is not seen as open-ended, but many different avenues of pursuit stem from it. (MP)

Calculators are seen to shift the student focus in problem-solving situations from "how to do it" to "what to do," by keeping computation from standing in the way when pupils write or solve problems. (MP)

Activity requires secondary students to make an entrepreneurial decision concerning a conflict between long-term and short-term results. Students read a dilemma story involving an automobile manufacturer. They must write down positive and negative consequences for alternative decisions on a "Human Consequences Matrix" and an "Economic Consequences…

The uses of random number generators are illustrated in three ways: (1) the solution of a probability problem using a coin; (2) the solution of a system of simultaneous linear equations using a die; and (3) the approximation of pi using darts. (MP)

The author recommends allowing elementary students to use pocket calculators, so that they may concentrate on the sense of a math problem without getting bogged down in computation. He presents calculator activities on place value, estimation, and arithmetic operations, suitable for grades 1-6. (SJL)

The use of the randomized response technique as a tool of obtaining answers to sensitive questions is illustrated. Directions for two classroom experiments are included. (MP)

Suggests a set of activities that foster physical and intellectual growth through thought-provoking situations which require no special equipment and can take place indoors or out. (MP)

Determining which whole numbers can be expressed as the difference of two squares and which as the sum of two squares forms the basis of two discovery exercises. (DT)