Discover the educational power of puzzle-based learning. Understand the principles of effective game design, the power of well-crafted narratives and how different game mechanics can support varied learning objectives. Applying escape room concepts to the classroom, this book offers practical advice on how to create immersive, collaborative learning experiences for your students without the need for expensive resources and tools. Packed with examples, including a full sample puzzle game for you to use with your students, this book is a primer for classroom teachers on designing robust learning activities using problem-solving principles.

What is missing in most curricula - from elementary school all the way through to university education - is coursework focused on the development of problem-solving skills. Most students never learn how to think about solving problems. Besides being a lot of fun, a puzzle-based learning approach also does a remarkable job of convincing students that (a) science is useful and interesting, (b) the basic courses they take are relevant, (c) mathematics is not that scary (no need to hate it!), and (d) it is worthwhile to stay in school, get a degree, and move into the real world which is loaded with interesting problems (problems perceived as real-world puzzles).

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.

A summary on tape of chapters from the accompanying book.

A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt. There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies. Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.

Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.

Help! A mad scientist has unleashed a throng of deadly robots on the world--and only by joining the characters and solving every one of these science-based puzzles can kids stop the destruction and save humanity. Learning about anatomy, astronomy, nature, secret codes, and more becomes a delightfully challenging game when these scientific subjects are woven into a thrilling and stylishly illustrated story. There's art throughout, created in a cool 1950's sci-fi style, and each puzzle focuses on a different topic. Through crosswords and riddles, word games and word searches, all kinds of fascinating facts emerge. Best of all, on the last page a "grand finale" uses all the solutions from other puzzles in the book.

A truly one-of-a-kind book. What animal is made up of three billiard balls, five feather dusters and dinosaur feet? … An ostrich, of course! In this book, young readers are asked to guess the animal using a list of unexpected bits and pieces as clues. The concept of this book is inspired by the ways old natural histories explained and illustrated exotic animals. Little-known animals were described as a hodgepodge of parts taken from familiar creatures and vegetation. Beavers, for example, were described as being composed of a flounder, an otter, goose feet, squirrel paws and a rabbit’s front teeth. Tricky, right? Well, not to worry! Opening the gatefold will reveal the animal — and lots of cool facts about it! Are you ready for your first Beastly Puzzle?

Beast Academy Puzzles 2 contains over 400 puzzles in 12 different styles. Every puzzle style is part of the broader Beast Academy level 2 math curriculum. Whether used on their own or as part of the complete Beast Academy curriculum, these puzzles will delight and entertain puzzle solvers of all ages.The puzzles in this book are accessible to anyone with a solid understanding of numbers and good mental addition and subtraction skills as taught in the Beast Academy level 2 series. The difficulty ranges from straightforward puzzles meant to give a feel for how each puzzle works to diabolical stumpers written by world puzzle champion Palmer Mebane.

Are you having trouble in finding Tier II intervention materials for elementary students who are struggling in math? Are you hungry for effective instructional strategies that will address students’ conceptual gap in additive and multiplicative math problem solving? Are you searching for a powerful and generalizable problem solving approach that will help those who are left behind in meeting the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM)? If so, this book is the answer for you. • The conceptual model-based problem solving (COMPS) program emphasizes mathematical modeling and algebraic representation of mathematical relations in equations, which are in line with the new Common Core. • “Through building most fundamental concepts pertinent to additive and multiplicative reasoning and making the connection between concrete and abstract modeling, students were prepared to go above and beyond concrete level of operation and be able to use mathematical models to solve more complex real-world problems. As the connection is made between the concrete model (or students’ existing knowledge scheme) and the symbolic mathematical algorithm, the abstract mathematical models are no longer “alien” to the students.” As Ms. Karen Combs, Director of Elementary Education of Lafayette School Corporation in Indiana, testified: “It really worked with our kids!” • “One hallmark of mathematical understanding is the ability to justify,... why a particular mathematical statement is true or where a mathematical rule comes from” (http://illustrativemathematics.org/standards). Through making connections between mathematical ideas, the COMPS program makes explicit the reasoning behind math, which has the potential to promote a powerful transfer of knowledge by applying the learned conception to solve other problems in new contexts. • Dr. Yan Ping Xin’s book contains essential tools for teachers to help students with learning disabilities or difficulties close the gap in mathematics word problem solving. I have witnessed many struggling students use these strategies to solve word problems and gain confidence as learners of mathematics. This book is a valuable resource for general and special education teachers of mathematics. - Casey Hord, PhD, University of Cincinnati