Tools, trophies in interactive learning

In the late 1940s, my father, Toivo E. Rine, professor of mathematics at Illinois State University, asserted that interactive learning strategies could help students better understand basic concepts in applied astrophysics and astronomy. Rine used his interactive method of teaching astronomy, navigation, and survey instruments to motivate undergraduate nonastronomy majors. An additional higher-level course showed students how to do surveying and navigation using astronomy methods; that course was a module of a much more extensive one Rine pioneered for the US Navy on the Illinois State campus and for navy personnel entering World War II. Many of Rine’s students who entered the war easily applied his interactive techniques to learn navigation and instrumentation.

His teaching strategies evolved over the years until shortly before his death in April 1964. Afterward, the Illinois chapter of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics established the T. E. Rine Award, presented annually to a teacher who applies the motivational teaching techniques he pioneered.