This article presents a classroom project that employs various techniques of active learning including role-playing, collaborative group work and writing. The project explores the recent creation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) with special emphasis on the introduction of the euro. The project assumes that the Americas have begun preliminary…

Educators are becoming increasingly sensitive to accommodating the needs of students from diverse backgrounds in their classes while ensuring that learning occurs. Group work often is the vehicle chosen to stimulate participation and positively affect learning. In this paper, we describe the development of parallel case studies related to…

Mathematical modeling is explored as both problem posing and problem solving from two perspectives, that of the child and the teacher. Mathematical modeling provides rich learning experiences for elementary school children and their teachers.

This work presents a unique education resource for both process engineering students and the industry workforce. The learning environment is based around spherical imagery of real operating plants coupled with interactive embedded activities and content. This Virtual Reality (VR) learning tool has been developed by applying aspects of relevant…

We describe an innovative bioinformatics course developed under grants from the National Science Foundation and the California State University Program in Research and Education in Biotechnology for undergraduate biology students. The project has been part of a continuing effort to offer students classroom experiences focused on principles and…

A protein lacking one of the 20 common amino acids is a protein lipogram. This open-ended problem-based learning assignment deals with the evolution of proteins with biased amino acid composition. It has students query protein and metabolic databases to test the hypothesis that natural selection has reduced the frequency of each amino acid…

Problem-based learning (PBL) works with a series of problems that form the syllabus for a course or the basis of a curriculum. Learning occurs through the definition of the problem and its attempted resolution. PBL is challenging but offers much potential for geography with its interdisciplinary character. The challenge to geography lecturers is…

Problem solving and exploratory activities using technology as a tool continue to receive attention in recommendations for school mathematics. This article presents an experience in pre-college level type of teaching aiming at familiarizing students with the process of mathematical research. Students discovered a result based on a computer…

Methods courses, the mainstays of preservice teacher education in social studies, are curiously understudied in general terms although there are numerous focused studies on such topics as methods textbooks, problem-based learning, and critical thinking, including an issue focused on reflections on the methods course in the "International Social…

This document is intended as a resource and guide to help teachers integrate a problem-centered approach into their curricula. It outlines the typical components of problem-centered mathematics and science activities, and offers practical suggestions, examples, and resources to assist this endeavor. The first section of this document, "What is…

Presents: (1) a list of ideas for teaching problem-solving; (2) a review of a problem-solving book used in medical education; and (3) a discussion of an approach called problem-based learning. (DH)

Several empirical studies are discussed which indicate that adapting the level of support, the difficulty of the learning task, or support as well as difficulty has beneficial effects on learning and transfer test performance. Three conclusions can be drawn from the presented studies. First, both the level of available support and the difficulty…

Statistics is generally classified as a difficult course. In this regard, promoting an active learning environment is a popular instructional strategy. However, there is much evidence in the literature of a literal and simplistic interpretation of "active learning environment". This report describes an approach to facilitating introductory…

This paper describes a project that was an arena for learning through three years (six semesters) of engineering education in computer technology. Project work accounted for approximately 20% of student work in five semesters, and 50% in the last semester. There were three categories of projects. The first type, in the first semester, had as its…

Mathematics is not only about learning problem-solving methods; it is also about gaining a deeper understanding of their purpose, advantages and disadvantages. Frequently, the same problem can be solved by applying several different methods. Mathematics education should also include clues to those best fitting to the person's aim. To achieve that…