In the marketing research class taught at University of South Carolina, Upstate School of Business and Economics, pedagogical emphasis is placed on the marketing research process as it relates to the policies and functions of the business enterprise. Historically, the marketing research project has been used in this undergraduate class to convey…

Increasingly, national stakeholders express concern that U.S. college graduates cannot adequately solve problems and think critically. As a set of cognitive abilities, critical thinking skills provide students with tangible academic, personal, and professional benefits that may ultimately address these concerns. As an instructional method, writing…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach that has been used successfully for over 30 years and continues to gain acceptance in multiple disciplines. It is an instructional (and curricular) learner-centered approach that empowers learners to conduct research, integrate theory and practice, and apply knowledge and skills to develop…

If pedagogical skills and knowledge are to become relevant to preservice teachers, students must develop their own process of active thought and become involved in their own learning. The question of how to bridge the gap between teaching theory and application can be facilitated by using a case study approach. This methodology is useful for the…

The 12th iteration of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2019) is organized under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society in Montreal, Canada. The theme of this year's conference is EDM in Open-Ended Domains. As EDM has matured it has increasingly been applied to open-ended and ill-defined tasks…

This easy-to-navigate guide offers research-based teaching strategies for introducing prekindergarten and elementary school students to the content and skills recommended by the NCTM principles and standards for mathematics. Using the popular format of the "What Successful Teachers Do" books, the authors present 47 dynamic learning activities,…

This article applies theories of alternative thinking and problem solving to the teaching context. Teachers working in static situations are prone to stagnation leading to a paradigm crisis where they are forced to question the status quo. Techniques for confronting such situations are examined, along with personal management strategies and the…

This article explores how students learned to measure tall objects using a clinometer and some basic calculations. Such activities provide opportunities for students and teachers to learn the usefulness of linking mathematics content and science content to real-world problem-solving situations. (Contains 7 figures.)

This article elaborates on the basics of problem-based learning units and tips for implementation. The problem-based learning unit described focuses on the course of action involved in purchasing a new car. (Contains 2 figures.)

Two hundred and thirty-one students in six Grade 9 classes in two government secondary schools located near Chiang Mai, Thailand, attempted to solve the same 18 quadratic equations before and after participating in 11 lessons on quadratic equations. Data from the students' written responses to the equations, together with data in the form of…

Extensive studies have been conducted on programming knowledge, instructional environments and effective pedagogies in order to improve the teaching and learning of computer programming. However, there have been few studies on the usefulness and effectiveness of using simulation. The aim of this paper is two-fold: to describe the design and…

Systematic inventive problem-solving is an approach for finding original and useful ideas by systematically examining alterations in existing components within a system, their attributes, functions or internal relationships. This method, which aims at complementing divergent thinking in problem-solving and design, is gaining increased attention in…

A remedial spelling training approach is presented which systematically combines certain visualizing and verbalizing methods to foster dyslexic students' orthographic knowledge and strategy use. It essentially depends upon an integrative application of algorithmic graphs and verbal self-instructions: Visualization and verbalization are intended…

The abacus is a calculating tool that has been used in Asia for thousands of years. Mental abacus calculation is a skill in which an abacus image in the mind is used without the actual physical manipulation of the abacus. Using this method, people can perform extremely rapid and accurate mental calculations. Research indicates that abacus training…

During the last years, development of open learning environments that support effectively their users has been a challenge for the research community of educational technologies. The open interactive nature of these environments results in users experiencing difficulties in coping with the plethora of available functions, especially during their…