In 1225 Fibonacci visited the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. Because Frederick was an important patron of learning, this visit was important to Fibonacci. During the audience, Frederick's court mathematician posed three problems to test Fibonacci. The third was to find the real solution to the equation: x[superscript 3] +…

The Lithuanian Informatics Olympiad is a problem solving contest for high school students. The work of each contestant is evaluated in terms of several criteria, where each criterion is measured according to its own scale (but the same scale for each contestant). Several jury members are involved in the evaluation. This paper analyses the problem…

The issue of the area of irregular shapes is absent from the modern mathematical textbooks in elementary education in Greece. However, there exists a collection of books written for educational purposes by famous Greek scholars dating from the eighteenth century, which propose certain techniques concerning the estimation of the area of such…

A pendulum with periodically varying length is an interesting physical system. It has been studied by some researchers using traditional perturbation methods (for example, the averaging method). But due to the limitation of the conventional perturbation methods, the solutions are not valid for long-term prediction of the pendulum. In this paper,…

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a cyclical, large scale study of adult skills and life experience focusing on education and employment that was developed and organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In the United States, the study was conducted in 2011-12 with a…

The goal of this study was to determine whether adult students incarcerated at a large correctional facility in New England use the provided scientific calculator appropriately when taking the Official GED Practice Test in mathematics. 13 students were interviewed after taking a practice test and asked for their strategy for solving each problem.…

To build on prior knowledge and mathematical understanding, middle school students need to be given the opportunity to make connections among a variety of representations. Graphs, tables, algebraic formulas, and models are just a few examples of representations that can help students explore quantitative relationships. As a mathematics educator,…

The topic "Recurrence relations" and its place in teaching students of Informatics is discussed in this paper. We represent many arguments about the importance, the necessity and the benefit of studying this subject by Informatics students. They are based on investigation of some fundamental books and textbooks on Discrete Mathematics,…

For many students, geometry is the first course in which mathematical proof takes center stage. To help ease students into writing proofs, the author tries to create lessons and activities throughout the year that challenge students to prove their own conjectures by using tools learned in previous mathematics courses. Teachers cannot get all…

Quantitative literacy is an important proficiency that pertains to "word problems" from science, history, and other fields. Unfortunately, teaching how to solve such problems often is relegated to math courses alone. This article examines how quantitative literacy also involves concepts and skills from English composition and the substantive…

This paper presents a prototype of a computer learning assistant ILMEV (Interactive Learning-Mathematica Enhanced Vector calculus) package with the purpose of helping students to understand the theory and applications of integration in vector calculus. The main problem for students using Mathematica is to convert a textbook description of a…

A pretest-posttest cluster-randomized trial involving 31 middle schools and 335 students with disabilities tested the effects of combining explicit and anchored instruction on fraction computation and problem solving. Results of standardized and researcher-developed tests showed that students who were taught with the blended units outscored…

The use of problem-solving strategies by 59 deaf and hard of hearing children, grades K-3, was investigated. The children were asked to solve 9 arithmetic story problems presented to them in American Sign Language. The researchers found that while the children used the same general types of strategies that are used by hearing children (i.e.,…

Simulation games are now increasingly applied to many subject domains as they allow students to engage in discovery processes, and may facilitate a flow learning experience. However, the relationship between learning experiences and problem solving strategies in simulation games still remains unclear in the literature. This study, thus, analyzed…

"Report of a Workshop on the Scope and Nature of Computational Thinking" presents a number of perspectives on the definition and applicability of computational thinking. For example, one idea expressed during the workshop is that computational thinking is a fundamental analytical skill that everyone can use to help solve problems, design…