Interspersing easy problems among challenging problems has been shown to both increase students' preference for completing math worksheets and the fluency with which they complete challenging problems. Although early research examining the interspersal procedure in mathematics was conducted with college-age students, there are a growing number of…

Background: e-status is a web-based tool able to generate different statistical exercises and to provide immediate feedback to students' answers. Although the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is becoming widespread in undergraduate education, there are few experimental studies evaluating its effects on learning. Method: All…

A solution to the Rubik's Cube was introduced to an eighth grade mathematics class. The purpose of this study was to determine if an introduction to a solution to the Rubik's Cube could enhance students' problem-solving abilities, increase their general interest in mathematics, and enhance students' problem solving self-efficacy. Pre and Post…

Sixty four preservice teachers taking a mathematics methods class for middle schools were given 3 math problems: multiply a three digit number by a two digit number; divide a whole number by a fraction; and compare the volume of two cylinders made in different ways from the same rectangular sheet. They were to a) solve them, explaining their…

In early 2008 researchers from the University of Melbourne's "New Technologies for Teaching Mathematics" project created a lesson for the Year 10 students at their Victorian research schools. Two important goals of secondary school mathematics education are to build students' conceptual knowledge and to teach students to think…

This paper summarizes difficulties that chemistry students at all levels commonly exhibit when translating, manipulating, and interpreting mathematical expressions that contain logarithms, and offers approaches that the authors have found useful to help students overcome such difficulties. The online supplement provides problem sets created by the…

The author of this article, while recently working through some problem sets on determining volumes by triple integrals in cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems, realized that, although the textbook he was using included many interesting problems involving spheres, cylinders and cones and the increasingly complex solids that arose from the…

Another way to divide a line segment discovered by Nathan Besteman is described along with Euclid's and the GLaD construction. The related projects and problems that teachers of geometry can assign to their students are also presented.

The greatest benefit of including leap year in the calculation is not to increase precision, but to show students that a problem can be solved without such presumption. A birthday problem is analyzed showing that calculating a leap-year birthday probability is not a frivolous computation.

Masters of worksheets are given that are designed to help students develop the problem-solving skills of analyzing information, identifying the question, and selecting pertinent facts. (MK)

The complexities involved in writing mathematics problems and a cooperative learning activity that gives students the challenge of writing mathematical logic problems for their peers is discussed. Making students construct mathematics problems taps into several important skills in mathematics and students are asked to consider what it means to…

Demonstrated is how the concept of equivalence classes modulo n can provide a basis for solving a wide range of problems. Five problems are presented and described to illustrate the power and usefulness of modular arithmetic in problem solving. (MNS)

Presents a word problem designed to encourage students to create systematic methods for counting and develop probability concepts. Involves sharing eight cookies between three people. (KHR)

The article outlines a series of mathematical tasks for gifted students (aged 7-12 years), stressing the value of research and inservice education that is firmly teacher and classroom based. (Author/DB)

The focus is on how line graphs can be used to approximate solutions to rate problems and to suggest equations that offer exact algebraic solutions to the problem. Four problems requiring progressively greater graphing sophistication are presented plus four exercises. (MNS)