This page is a work in progress!
Explicit Problem Solving
Students taking physics and astronomy courses are expected to learn quantitative reasoning and problem solving skills. These are highly transferable skills that can benefit students throughout their lives. For STEM majors, these skills are essential for obtaining a degree.
I teach these skills by demonstrating the full process of problem solving, from reading and deconstructing a question to obtaining a final answer. Immediately following the example, students practice applying what they’ve learned to similar problems. I plan to improve the worksheets I developed for future iterations of the class, but those used in Summer 2023 are available on Open Educational Resources.
Like any new teaching strategy, this did not work out of the box. I noticed several students looking puzzled as they glanced between the whiteboard where the example had been written and their worksheets. I realized that the example on the whiteboard did not make as much sense without the context of my explanation. Universal Design for Learning inspired me to provide another option for representing the example problems. I took the notes I was already writing for myself and made them neater and easier to follow. Once I began posting these notes to the LMS, I noticed the same students who had struggled to follow the whiteboard problems were now pulling up the online notes as they worked out the problems. As a bonus, the notes were also useful to students who wanted to review the material and for students who had missed class.
Here’s an example of one of my notes. In the future, I will improve the accessibility of these materials by making screen-reader friendly options.
Science in the Classroom
Coming soon!
Bryanne McDonough 