The first chapter contains five papers with ideas, approaches, and applications that range over several different areas. The articles by Nadine Myers of Hamline University and Agnes Rash of St. Joseph's University show how oral presentations, projects, readings, and writing can be used creatively to enhance student learning and interest in courses like Discrete Mathematics, Linear Algebra, Modern Algebra, Number Theory, Probability, and Statistics. Both articles emphasize student cooperation and participation and both contain extensive information on implementation and mentoring.

Mathematics is used extensively in other disciplines and the article by Michael Huber and Joseph Myers of the United States Military Academy describes how to take advantage of this largely untapped resource. They describe in detail how to develop ILAP's (Interdisciplinary Lively Application Projects) by working in conjunction with faculty in science, engineering, and the social sciences. Once a project is prepared, it is assigned to students for group work; some projects are usable as early as the first semester of the sophomore year. While several ILAP's are described and the bibliography contains extensive references to others, the major goal of the article is to provide extensive information on how to design and implement an ILAP.

Many upper division mathematics courses spend little time indicating how the history of mathematics has influenced the course content. In his paper, Herbert Kasube of Bradley University notes how an understanding of the history of a subject, when integrated into the course, can motivate students to pursue the subject matter.