Thanks for the nice post. I was looking for the recipe but I found out that there is no specific recipe. I remembered this short scene from Kung Fu Panda movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXcohOB43q0
where the idea was “To make something special, you just have to believe it is special”.
The same here, you don’t need a recipe to be a good teacher, however, if you believe in the importance of delivering information to students, you will do your best to achieve this. This in my opinion comes from good preparation and using effective ways that keep students interested in what you teach.

Thanks for the effective ideas you brought in your post. I think using such ways of teaching will not be embarrassing for students if we as instructors joined them in doing so. I feel that the best way to let students learn is to get them involved in the process of learning. I mean not to give them everything and only ask them to memorize, otherwise if they participate in an activity like dancing or playing, they well get the most of this learning.

Thanks for your comment. What I liked is your evaluation method, you evaluate based on how you solve, and think, more than the final solution. Questions really differ by field, for example in programming it is much easier to change some part in the code and ask students How do you think this change will affect the output.

Thanks for your valuable comments. I agree that creating a learning environment that help students to ask good questions is a great achievement. I once heard one professor saying that the aim of PhD programs is not just to make good publications but to teach students how to ask good questions.

This problem was not meant to be an actual situation to deal with, at least you were able to hold the candle. The aim of this problem is to stimulate the mind to think in a situation with constraints. The problem without these constraints is a normal problem that could have many solutions and that we have faced a lot in our life so we are using our memory or experience in it. However, formulating the problem in this way was only to prove that an easy task appears difficult if you have to think from scratch not based on what you have in memory.

Yes, I agree. Teachers/professors should think first in problems before giving them to students to ensure that they are correct (in order not to fail in the same problem as you got :)). And to see if it will be suitable for the thinking level of students. I think challenging problems also raise curiosity to learn.

I think the candle problem could have many solutions. For me, I did not get the official solution. I also thought in your solution but I think this solution may not last for long time.
In classes of 50 students for example, you could give students printed questions and ask them to work in groups of two or three for like 10 minutes. By this they will cooperate and a student in a lower level will learn indirectly from his peers.

Exactly, as a teacher you need to give time to students to think. Questions also have another benefit which is to to keep students concentrating to be ready to answer. Also, it works as a pause from continuous talking that cusses boredom to the receivers.

I think every movie can deliver some (scientific) information as long as it does this smoothly without interrupting the scenario. Moreover, some carefully written scientific movies become very interesting to the audience and allow them to learn a lot. For example, Disney World has a movie called “Ellen’s Energy Adventure”, I think this movie is displayed in a ride there but it is available in YouTube. This movie gives you a lot of information about the history of energy and different energy sources in a very interesting way that every one will like. I think that this method, games, and other fun ways are very helpful to teach students while they enjoy their times.

First of all, I really liked the music in this video, I searched online and it seems to be an old orchestra from Handel called “Water Music” :).
Anyway, the idea of learning through playing is very effective. It is used with kids from their first days through educational toys. When it comes to video games, it might be hard to teach all subjects through video games. It for sure will work with programming and not only in command window, it was already used in GUI applications to let students move objects in a frame. For other subjects it may be tricky to use the same method. However, the idea of teaching through playing remains very interesting and needs to be developed to cover many subjects.