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The Islands Puzzle
Module 1: How People Reason
The puzzle is about Islands A, B, C and D in the ocean. People have been traveling among these islands by boat for many years, but recently an airline started in business. Carefully read the clues about possible plane trips at present. The trips maybe direct or include stops and plane changes on an island. When a trip is possible, it can be made in either direction between the islands. You may make notes or marks on the map to help use the clues.
The Mealworm Puzzle
Module 1: How People Reason
Some experimenters wanted to test the response of mealworms to light and moisture. To do this they set up four boxes as shown in the diagram below. They used lamps for light sources and constantly watered pieces of paper in the boxes for moisture. In the center of each box they placed 20 mealworms. One day later they returned to count the number of mealworms that had crawled to the different ends of the boxes.
The Treasure Hunt Puzzle
Module 1: How People Reason
At the beginning of his novel The Hamlet, William Falconer mentions a legend of a treasure buried on an old plantation. Readers expect, naturally, that before the novel ends there will be a search for the treasure, and and Faulkner does not disappoint them.
Four major characters are soon introduced: Will, who is chief landowner thereabouts; Jody, Will's son and heir-apparent; Flem, a shrewd fellow working for Will; and Ratliff, an itinerant sewing machine salesman.
Faulkner had to decide who among these four characters would be "in on" the hunt for the buried treasure. Someday you may read the novel …
The Mr. Short / Mr. Tall Puzzle
The Mr. Short / Mr. Tall Puzzle
Module 1: How People Reason
The figure below is called Mr. Short. We used large round buttons laid side-by-side to measure Mr. Short's height, starting from the floor between his feet and going to the top of his head. His height was four buttons. Then we took a similar figure called Mr. Tall and measured it in the same way with the same buttons. Mr. Tall was six buttons high.
Module 1 - How People Reason - Overview
Module 1 - How People Reason - Overview
Module 1: How People Reason
You have probably been puzzled at various times in your teaching career by the thinking strategies that students appear to use to solve problems. It is difficult for most of us to understand that many students do not use reasoning patterns that seem obvious to us. Many students substitute numbers into a formula they remember even though the formulas may not be applicable to the problem at hand. This situation quite naturally leads us to wonder about the reasoning that students utilize when we would employ mental operations such as separating variables, excluding an irrelevant factor, or applying a mathematical …