Presents an alternative approach to teaching laboratory chemistry that considers issues such as safety, waste disposal, and cost. Focuses on the micro-scale approach and discusses a number of positive benefits that can be gained from adopting this approach. (DDR)

Reports on the advances of one institution in integrating design across the undergraduate engineering curriculum. Design education is treated as a developmental process to be practiced during each year of the program. Presents examples of design work from courses in each year to illustrate the variety of design problems used to incorporate design…

Four students (ages 8-11) with mild mental retardation used an animated tutorial computer program to learn mathematical problem solving. Results indicated that all students obtained significant gains from pretest to posttest and had positive attitudes toward computers after training. Transfer of the problem-solving skills to paper-and-pencil…

Suggests that involving Russian experts in solving concrete educational problems and providing curriculum development in the United States could be very useful. A primary goal would be to change the attitudes and beliefs of teachers and to extend teachers' views on teaching mathematics. (AIM)

Provides pathological examples for which graphing calculators sometimes give surprising, misleading, or incorrect results. Investigates some of the more interesting of these examples encountered while using the TI-85 in a variety of undergraduate courses including calculus and matrix theory. (DDR)

Describes a project combining precalculus and transition mathematics students focusing on popcorn by comparing popping ratios of different brands of popcorn and finding what size box could hold the most popped corn. Project design required group effort and cooperation. Students exhibited growth of positive attitudes toward the study of mathematics…

Graphs from media sources and questions developed from them can be used in the middle school mathematics classroom. Graphs depict storage temperature on a milk carton; air pressure measurements on a package of shock absorbers; sleep-wake patterns of an infant; a dog's breathing patterns; and the angle, velocity, and radius of a leaning bicyclist…

Describes the introduction of virtual, or digital, reference service at the University of New Brunswick libraries. Highlights include analyzing transcripts from LIVE (Library Information in a Virtual Environment); reference question types; ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) information literacy competency standards; and the Big 6…

Presents the theoretical framework and research design of a project based on longitudinal data collected in the United Sates and the United Kingdom that investigated the processes of mediated information retrieval searching during human information-seeking processes. Topics include problem-solving; uncertainty; cognitive styles; and…

Reports on four action research studies that had impact on classroom practices. Topics include student self-assessment and problem solving. (DDR)

A Montana teacher in a very small high school describes how SIMMS Integrated Mathematics has helped students to develop better problem-solving skills and better oral and written communication skills, has contributed to increased student enrollment in a fourth year of high school mathematics, and has taught students to use technology tools in…

Presents two ancient problems, trisecting any angle and dividing a circle into any number of equal parts. Illustrates how to use these problems to prompt students to think broadly and creatively about problems instead of letting the apparent boundaries of the problem limit their thoughts. Combines three-dimensional solutions to the problems to…

Describes a Web site that makes use of the Comparative Statics Wizard add-in feature for Microsoft Excel. Enables students to focus on economic problems involving optimality, rate of change, and equilibrium solutions. (JEH)

Assigned elementary schools to either immediate postbaseline intervention (PBI) with PeaceBuilders, a school-based violence prevention program, or to intervention 1 year later (PBD). Found significant gains in social competence for kindergarten through second-graders in Year 1, in peace-building behavior in Grades K to 5, and reduced aggression in…

Presents a lesson used with middle-school students where they created their own three-dimensional desserts with the aim of making them lifelike. Explains that the students utilized a problem-solving model in order to complete the project. Discusses the benefits and the methods used to make the desserts look real. (CMK)