![]() ![]() But students would not have built up an appreciation of the underlying physics concept without those simpler, less headache-inducing examples. This brings up the notion that maybe you could start with the final example instead, as this is the headache. Students should now (theoretically) come flocking to me for the solution – and they certainly do find this much more satisfying. Aspirin here is “using a formula to perform a calculation” and I’ve created to headache by ensuring there’s no direct comparison between the two scenarios. The perfect customer to sell aspirin to is someone with a mild headache – people won’t appreciate the aspirin if they don’t need it and you ethically shouldn’t force it down them. Harry Fletcher Wood discusses student motivation in his book Habits Of Success and on various podcasts and gives the example of being an aspirin salesperson. You can tailor the numbers in the example to make this as easy or as hard as you need. I point out that writing that down takes longer than doing the two calculations (but it’s a great example of thinking like a physicist and throw a load of praise their way). “the force in A is more than half of B, and the distance is more than double, so it’s A” – I’ve got no problem with this. Some students are very good at deducing answers though here which shows that they’re thinking about the relationship e.g. Students can’t immediately see the correct answer, so to work out who does more work, we are forced to do a calculation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |