Problem Solving Labs |
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| At the University of Minnesota
Department of Physics we have cooperative group problem
solving in our laboratory sections. In plain English,
this means we have groups of students working together to
confirm if their solution to a problem is correct. These
groups are more than just students sitting together, but
are structured learning groups, but this is the subject
of another WWW page. Our labs are not cookbook, verification labs. Rather they use a learning cycle of predict-explore-measure-explain. Our labs did not originally use any computer data acquisition or analysis. This was deliberate. We wanted to create good problem solving labs without simultaneously working to create good computerized labs. Since we now feel that we have "good" problem solving labs, we are spending the next few years computerizing and enhancing our current labs. The problems in our labs come in two flavors; quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative problems require the students to create a mathematical expression that they feel describes the system to be investigated. The qualitative problems require the students to use their intuition to predict how the system being investigated behaves. The qualitative problems are called exploratory problems in our lab manuals. Frequently Asked Questions about our problem-solving labs.
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