Lyublinskaya, director of physics at ASMS, became the first Best Practices grant recipient. They gave lessons in geometry and conceptual physics , held a workshop with Arkansas teachers, met with a state Department of Education official and helped ASMS faculty members assess the new school's progress. I feel that he has opened up a whole new world of problem-solving methods. Two thumbs up. Russian and US approaches to math and science are quite different, Lyublinskaya explained.
Russian students have no multiple-choice tests, and most exams are oral.
This requires a student to reason problems and justify his answers. At first, ASMS students find the new approach difficult and uncomfortable. They're not scared to approach a new problem, and they're much more independent in their thinking, which is good. I think it will help a lot of kids have better skills, and it helped me learn as a teacher. It's just given me a new focus.