Guide to Teaching Puzzle-based Learning

Abstract

The Puzzle-based Learning approach aims to encourage students to think about how to frame and solve descriptive (unstructured) problems. The goal is to motivate students, and to increase their mathematical awareness and problem solving skills by discussing a variety of puzzles and their solution strategies. Besides being a lot of fun, the Puzzle-based Learning approach does a remarkable job of convincing students that (a) science is useful and interesting, (b) the basic courses they are taking are relevant, (c) mathematics is not that scary (there is 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).