Open-Ended Problem Instruction in General Physics

Despite the undisputed importance attached to problem-solving activities in college and university physics courses, problem teaching methods have changed little since 1900. A possible explanation of this paradoxical combination of importance and stagnation is lack of awareness of the tremendous range of activities that problem work could provide for teaching students the skills and attitudes of creative physicists—if taught in a way very different from the usual methods of today. The plausibility of this explanation is enhanced by the critique of current problem teaching methods presented in this paper. Present-day methods are evaluated on the basis of six specific objectives of physics-problem teaching, derived from an analysis of the skills and attitudes involved when a creative physicist tackles a problem in his own work. It is shown that conventional methods aim at only one of these six objectives. A new approach, making use of open-ended problems and designed to attain all six objectives, is presented. It is illustrated by a detailed teaching sample and additional procedural remarks, in order to facilitate experimentation with the method.