Аннотация: In some classes, students want to get a passing grade (e.g., C or B) by spending the smallest amount of effort. In such situations, it is reasonable for the instructor to assign the grades for different tasks in such a way that the resulting overall student's effort is the largest possible. In this paper, we show that to achieve this goal, we need to assign, to each task, the number of points proportional to the efforts needed for this task.

Аннотация: Education researchers often cite a statement from Anatole France: "An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." In this paper, we show how this statement can be transformed into an exact theorem.

Аннотация: Ancient Egyptians represented each fraction as a sum of unit fractions, i.e., fractions of the type 1/n. In our previous papers, we explained that this representation makes perfect sense: e.g., it leads to an efficient way of dividing loaves of bread between people. However, one thing remained unclear: why, when representing fractions of the type 2/(2k+1), Egyptians did not use a natural representation 1/(2k+1)+1/(2k+1), but used a much more complicated representation instead. In this paper, we show that the need for such a complicated representation can be explained if we take into account that instead of cutting a rectangular-shaped loaf in one direction – as we considered earlier – we can simultaneously cut it in two orthogonal directions. For example, to cut a loaf into 6 pieces, we can cut in 2 pieces in one direction and in 3 pieces in another direction. Together, these cuts will divide the original loaf into 2 * 3 = 6 pieces. It is known that Egyptian fractions are an exciting topics for kids, helping them better understand fractions. In view of this fact, we plan to use our new explanation to further enhance this understanding.

Аннотация: Many parents reward their children for doing different chores. The problem is that: while in the beginning, kids are very enthusiastic about performing chores and collecting points, by the time when they have accumulated a sufficient number of points, they become less and less interested. In this paper, we provide a decision theory solution on how many points to assign for consecutive chores.