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Re: Am I teaching what I should in HS physics?



And when they get the first step right, go on to:
Step 2. Read the question again.

I agree on understanding the words. When a student says something
like "I totally don't understand this problem", my standard retort is,
"What's the first word you don't understand?" It's amazing how often
clarification comes from recourse to a dictionary.
Also, the "What's the first word ..." question is useful for
beginning a classroom dialogue on how to solve the particular problem at
hand. After many such dialogues in class, some students begin to get the
drift.
Regards,
Jack



On Mon, 1 Jul 2002, Tina Fanetti wrote:

The first step I tell all my students in problem solving is first to =
read the question. You'd be amazed or maybe not that most don't do t=
hat. I then ask them to look and make sure they know what all the wo=
rds in the problem mean. If you don't know what a word is, that does=
n't mean you should skip it and think it is unimportant.

Tina


Conventional problem solving as put forth in many books is explaine=
d as
finding the correct formula and then plugging in. This is a big mist=
ake.
Expert problem solvers first go through a process of looking at the p=
hysical
situation, making drawings, diagram ... and the last step might be us=
ing a
memorized equation. <<<

Tina Fanetti
Physics Instructor
Western Iowa Technical Community College
4647 Stone Ave
Sioux City IA 51102
712-274-8733 ext 1429


--
"But as much as I love and respect you, I will beat you and I will kill
you, because that is what I must do. Tonight it is only you and me, fish.
It is your strength against my intelligence. It is a veritable potpourri
of metaphor, every nuance of which is fraught with meaning."
Greg Nagan from "The Old Man and the Sea" in
<The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>