Are you frustrated when students focus on “getting the right answer” without understanding why the physics works that way, or even why their own brains came to that conclusion? If so, this might be less about the student and more about the pedagogy—you might be stuck on the “One True Path,” a way of thinking that assumes there is a single correct answer to questions, or even prefers for there to be one. Especially when introducing ideas, we often ask questions that have a single, usually mathematical, solution. We could choose problems that require judgment calls between imperfect trade-offs, but I only found such problems in textbooks reserved for advanced courses.
References
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Initiation-response-evaluation: see p. 42,
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The approach described has overlaps with some aspects of (continued on p. 668) (continued from p. 667) Modeling Instruction;
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Assessment tasks designed for the Next Generation Science Standards require that students engage in sense-making and not rote learning: see “Task Annotation Project in Science: Must-Haves,” http://www.achieve.org/files/sites/default/files/non-negotiables_02142019.pdf.
4.
Hat tip to Dan Meyer for this phrasing: https://blog.mrmeyer.com/if-math-is-the-aspirin-then-how-do-you-create-the-headache/.
5.
Rachel M.
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2021
Author(s)
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