The Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) program at the University of Minnesota is a primary academic support program for historically difficult, introductory college courses that serve as gatekeepers to academic degree programs. This document is the training manual used for the new PAL facilitators that manage the small study groups. Based upon operating…

The use of data for making educational decisions and to assess educational outcomes has been legislated by political bodies and codified by accreditation. Faculty have always used data to inform the grading process--data is gathered throughout the term to inform the letter grade assigned at the end. However, in today's educational environment,…

This book explores strategies for building up a repertoire of techniques that allow teachers to develop effective explanatory skills. Though it focuses on elementary teachers, many strategies are appropriate for secondary teachers. The book uses a mixture of activities, discussion points, and classroom-based findings that have been proven…

Presented is an approach to introducing upper division, undergraduate geology students to nonparametric statistics and their application to geologic data. Discussed are the use of the Mann-Whitney U and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests and a class assignment which illustrates their use. (CW)

The results of a simulation model of a queuing system are reported. Use in an introductory quantitative analysis course to enhance students' computer and quantitative modeling knowledge is described. (CW)