Re: Setting up problems

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

        This is an ancient issue.  It was commented on back in the early
'thirties, in the context of MIT undergraduates (early edition of Slater &
Frank).
        I have evidence that it is partly a question of maturity.  I had a
student from a junior course where I introduced Corben and Stehle's text
write to me many years later with the comment "I don't know why I thought
it was so difficult!"
        But another part of the difficulty is certainly the math education
where almost all of the problems are of the "plug & chug" variety.  The
best results I was ever able to obtain came from a deliberate slowing down
and reduction of coverage, and much repetition.  But when a student "gets
it", sparks fly!
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack



On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Promod Pratap wrote:

> I am an on-again-off-again reader of this list-serve, and I had a
> question that you might be able to help.
>
> I teach Physics to undergraduates (Physics majors and others) at UNCG,
> and I have reached the conclusion that students have problems with
> Physics because they do not know how to set up problems to the point
> where they can do the math to solve the problem.  Observations to
> support this conclusions include:  a) students who do well in the
> Calculus course (upto and including ODE) do poorly in Physics coursed;
> b) students remark -- "I could NEVER have take the problem given and
> arrived at that equation";  c) the inordinate desire of students to
> "find the magic formula", so that they can then plug and chug.
>
> Is there some way to teach students how to read a word problem and then
> set it up so that they can then apply the math to it?  I don't remember
> how I learned this, but I (and all my colleagues) seem to be rather good
> at this.
>
> Promod Pratap

--
"Don't push the river, it flows by itself"
                                Frederick Perls