Related papers: Difficult Problems Having Easy Solutions
While teaching introductory programming courses for over a decade in reputed institutions we have experienced that several factors play significant role in developing problem solving skills and program development skills in students. There…
This article introduces a pedagogical method for {\it solving combinatorial problems} that frequently involve structures that are unfamiliar or less familiar. Indeed, an indirect method has been proposed in order to evade any possible…
We discuss the development of interactive video tutorial-based problems to help introductory physics students learn effective problem solving heuristics. The video tutorials present problem solving strategies using concrete examples in an…
Introductory courses on electric circuits at undergraduate level are usually presented in quite abstract terms, with questions and problems quite far from practical problems. This causes the students have difficulties to apply that theory…
We describe the development of a junior-senior level course for Physics majors designed to teach Mathematica skills in support of their undergraduate coursework, but also to introduce students to modern research level results. Standard…
This book is expository and is in Russian (sample English translation of two pages is given). It is shown how in the course of solution of interesting geometric problems (close to applications) naturally appear different notions of…
In this paper, we discuss some problems of elementary plane differential geometry and kinematics. Although the results are not new, the consistent use of complex-valued functions (plane curves) of a real variable (parameter) allows to…
Students must learn effective problem solving strategies in order to develop expertise in physics. Effective problem solving strategies include a conceptual analysis of the problem followed by planning of the solution, and then…
You will find here a number of (mostly) elementary physics problems dealing mainly with uniform motion kinematics. In preparing this collection I have tried to create original situations that could help bring motivation to an introductory…
Mathematics is an essential element of physics problem solving, but experts often fail to appreciate exactly how they use it. Math may be the language of science, but math-in-physics is a distinct dialect of that language. Physicists tend…
Upper-division physics students spend much of their time solving problems. In addition to their basic skills and background, their epistemic framing can form an important part of their ability to learn physics from these problems.…
We report on a large-scale study of student learning of quantum tunneling in 4 traditional and 4 transformed modern physics courses. In the transformed courses, which were designed to address student difficulties found in previous research,…
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…
Dynamics problem solving is highly specific to the problem at hand and to develop the general mind framework to become an effective problem solver requires ingenuity and creativity on top of a solid grounding on theoretical and conceptual…
Highly successful students, as measured by grades and by scores on the Force Concept Inventory, still struggle with fundamental concepts in mathematics and physics. These difficulties, which turn physics into parrot learning and include…
Computation is a central aspect of modern science and engineering work, and yet, computational instruction has yet to fully pervade university STEM curricula. In physics, we have begun to integrate computation into our courses in a variety…
We solve a difficult problem involving velocity and acceleration components along oblique axes, and propose two problems of central force motion to be solved using oblique axes.
The dog-and-rabbit chase problem is a classical problem that illustrates the concepts of elementary kinematics and, therefore, can be used in introductory mechanics teaching. By dealing with the relative motion, the problem naturally…
The main theme of the article is the study of discrete systems of material points subjected to constraints not only of a geometric type (holonomic constraints) but also of a kinematic type (nonholonomic constraints). The setting up of the…
We investigated the common difficulties that students have with concepts related to rotational and rolling motion covered in the introductory physics courses. We compared the performance of calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics…