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Guide to Teaching Puzzle-based Learning

  • Textbook
  • © 2014

Overview

Authors:
  1. Edwin F. Meyer III

    1. Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, USA

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  2. Nickolas Falkner

    1. University of Adelaide, Australia

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  3. Raja Sooriamurthi

    1. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA

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  4. Zbigniew Michalewicz

    1. University of Adelaide, Australia

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  • Presents a range of general problem-solving strategies that transcend disciplines
  • Highlights the importance of introspection and the value of meta-level reasoning in the problem-solving process
  • Examines the development of the student in terms of their understanding of knowledge and epistemological progress
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science (UTICS)

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Table of contents (15 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
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  2. Motivation and Teaching

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-2
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    2. Motivation

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 3-12

    3. Getting Started

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 13-20

    4. Icebreakers

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 21-35

    5. Effective Teaching Approaches

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 37-63

  3. Tools, Tips, and Strategies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-67
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    2. Understand the Problem

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 69-94

    3. Reasoning: Logic and Reasoning Backwards

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 95-105

    4. Pattern Recognition

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 107-121

    5. Enumerate and Eliminate

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 123-136

    6. Simplify!

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 137-147

    7. Perform a Gedanken: “What If?” and “So What?”

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 149-158

    8. Simulation and Optimization

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 159-184

  4. Challenges

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 185-186
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    2. Probabilistic Reasoning

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 187-232

    3. Logical Reasoning

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 233-258

    4. Geometric Reasoning

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 259-286

    5. Grand Challenges

      • Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz
      Pages 287-334

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 335-345
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About this book

This book provides insights drawn from the authors’ extensive experience in teaching Puzzle-based Learning. Practical advice is provided for teachers and lecturers evaluating a range of different formats for varying class sizes. Features: suggests numerous entertaining puzzles designed to motivate students to think about framing and solving unstructured problems; discusses models for student engagement, setting up puzzle clubs, hosting a puzzle competition, and warm-up activities; presents an overview of effective teaching approaches used in Puzzle-based Learning, covering a variety of class activities, assignment settings and assessment strategies; examines the issues involved in framing a problem and reviews a range of problem-solving strategies; contains tips for teachers and notes on common student pitfalls throughout the text; provides a collection of puzzle sets for use during a Puzzle-based Learning event, including puzzles that require probabilistic reasoning, and logic and geometry puzzles.

Reviews

From the book reviews:

“The book’s approach is to present many problems, and for each one, discuss how to present it to students and how to help them learn in the course of working on it. … this book does a very nice job of bringing together an impressive collection of puzzles and presenting them to teachers in a manner that supports their use in an undergraduate classroom.” (S. L. Tanimoto, Computing Reviews, November, 2014)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, USA

    Edwin F. Meyer III

  • University of Adelaide, Australia

    Nickolas Falkner, Zbigniew Michalewicz

  • Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA

    Raja Sooriamurthi

About the authors

Dr. Edwin F. Meyer is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, OH, USA.

Dr. Nickolas Falkner is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean of Information Technology in the School of Computer Science at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

Dr. Raja Sooriamurthi is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Information Systems Program at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

Dr. Zbigniew Michalewicz is an Emeritus Professor of the School of Computer Science at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He also holds Professor positions at the Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Guide to Teaching Puzzle-based Learning

  • Authors: Edwin F. Meyer III, Nickolas Falkner, Raja Sooriamurthi, Zbigniew Michalewicz

  • Series Title: Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6476-0

  • Publisher: Springer London

  • eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag London 2014

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4471-6475-3Published: 04 August 2014

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4471-6476-0Published: 23 July 2014

  • Series ISSN: 1863-7310

  • Series E-ISSN: 2197-1781

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVI, 345

  • Number of Illustrations: 98 b/w illustrations, 19 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Computers and Education, Science Education, Teaching and Teacher Education

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