Related papers: Funny Problems!
Many undergraduate students of engineering and the exact sciences have difficulty with their mathematics courses due to insufficient proficiency in what we in this paper have termed clear thinking. We believe that this lack of proficiency…
Learning physics requires understanding the applicability of fundamental principles in a variety of contexts that share deep features. One way to help students learn physics is via analogical reasoning. Students can be taught to make an…
The manual contains (in Russian) solutions of 230 problems that were used by the author for a number of years at the tutorial seminars in the first year undergraduate course in Mechanics and special relativity at Novosibirsk State…
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" for describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 55 years of (sometimes anguished) soul searching ---…
In this study, we examine introductory physics students' ability to perform analogical reasoning between two isomorphic problems which employ the same underlying physics principles but have different surface features. Three hundred and…
We present a list of open questions in mathematical physics. After a historical introduction, a number of problems in a variety of different fields are discussed, with the intention of giving an overall impression of the current status of…
If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated…
Helping students become proficient problem solvers is a major goal of many physics courses from introductory to advanced levels. In fact, physics has often been used by cognitive scientists to investigate the differences between the…
In recent years there has been growing evidence that even after teaching designed to address the learning difficulties dictated by literature, many physics learners fail to create the proper reasoning chains that connect the fundamental…
This paper outlines a deceptively complex problem in classical mechanics which the paper names the "Falling Astronaut Problem," and it explores a method for teachers to implement this problem in an undergraduate classroom. The paper…
I am a second-year cognitive science major, and as a student who has completed my physical science distribution requirements, I will likely never again encounter Gauss's law. So why do I feel that the time and effort I devoted to solving…
Embedding physics problems unreal-world settings, here termed contextualized physics problems (CPP), is widely believed to foster students' interest, motivation, and learning. However, firm evidence for this claim remains scarce. To explore…
Mathematics and its relation to the physical universe have been the topic of speculation since the days of Pythagoras. Several different views of the nature of mathematics have been considered: Realism - mathematics exists and is…
Understanding issues involved in expertise in physics problem solving is important for helping students become good problem solvers. In part 1 of this article, we summarize the research on problem-solving relevant for physics education…
There are two important things in science: (A) Finding answers to given questions, and (B) Coming up with good questions. Our artificial scientists not only learn to answer given questions, but also continually invent new questions, by…
This report describes the development and use of an online teaching tool giving students exercises in logical modelling, or \emph{formalisation} as it is called in the older literature. The original version of the site, `Logic for Fun',…
The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than contexts, is considered a hallmark of expertise in physics problem solving. With inspiration from a classic study by Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser, we compared…
One of the main activities in science teaching, and in particular in Physics teaching, is not only the discussion of both modern problems and problems which solution is an urgent matter. It means that the picture of an active and alive…
Classes of linguistic paradoxes and linguistic tautologies are introduced with examples and explanations. They are part of the author's work on the Paradoxist Philosophy based on mathematical logic. The general cases exposed below are…
We investigated the effects of student-generated problems on exams. The process was gradual with some training throughout the semester. Initial results were highly positive with the students involved performing significantly better, and…