Abstract
As part of a larger study to understand instructors' considerations regarding the learning and teaching of problem solving in an introductory physics course, we investigated beliefs of first-year graduate teaching assistants (TAs) regarding the use of example solutions in introductory physics. In particular, we examine how the goal of promoting expert-like problem solving is manifested in the considerations of graduate TAs choices of example solutions. Twenty-four first-year graduate TAs were asked to discuss their goals for presenting example solutions to students. They were also provided with different example solutions and asked to discuss their preferences for prominent solution features. TAs' awareness, preferences and actual practices related to solution features were examined in light of recommendations from the literature for the modeling of expert-like problem solving approaches. The study concludes that the goal of helping students develop an expert-like problem solving approach underlies many TAs' considerations for the use of example solutions. TAs, however, do not notice and do not use many features described in the research literature as supportive of this goal. A possible explanation for this gap between their belief and practices is that these features conflict with another powerful set of values concerned with keeping students engaged, setting adequate standards, as well as pragmatic considerations such as time requirements and the assignment of grades.
Highlights
Helping students develop an expertlike problem-solving approach is an important instructional goal for introductory physics courses, valued both by physics instructors [1,2,3] and by stake holders in academics and industry [4]
This paper intends to fill in this gap by examining how the goal of promoting expertlike problem-solving is manifested in the considerations of first-year teaching assistants (TAs) choices of example solutions. (Please note, hereafter when referring to the TAs that we study, the term TA refers to the first-year TAs that we studied.) This instructional context was chosen for two reasons
To frame the results discussed in this paper, we suggest the reader take a few minutes to look at the example solutions (Figs. 5–7), reflect on how these solutions are similar to or different from the solutions they use, and try to articulate their reasons for favoring particular solution features
Summary
Helping students develop an expertlike problem-solving approach is an important instructional goal for introductory physics courses, valued both by physics instructors [1,2,3] and by stake holders in academics and industry [4]. Instructional strategies have been developed and shown to help students improve their problem-solving skills [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. Researchers have proposed a prescriptive problem-solving strategy. [9,13,21] as an instructional tool to explicate to some extent an expertlike approach to problem solving This strategy includes three major components: (1) distinct problem analysis, (2) solution construction that makes explicit the plan, in particular intermediate goals and the principles used to figure them, and (3) checking the final answer. We first describe instructional approaches recommended by the research literature to improve students’ problem-solving approaches.
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