Teaching Learning Skills and Problem Solving

Geoff Swan
Physics Program, Edith Cowan University

Abstract

To succeed at university, students need to possess a range of strategies and skills that support independent and self-directed learning. Traditionally, many of these strategies and skills, some of which are highly generic, are not explicitly taught to students in the expectation that students either already have these skills, or will naturally acquire and develop these skills in their course of study. Unfortunately this is not the case for many tertiary students, and intervention to teach these skills to these students is increasingly being seen as necessary.

Skim reading and note taking from text (Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick and Walker, 1997) has been taught to students in SCP1111 Physics of Motion; a first semester first year introduction to mechanics. Improving reading and note taking skills for this textbook would assist students in becoming more self-directed and independent learners in physics, and less reliant on their physics lecturer.

Lecture time was also set aside for teaching problem solving strategies. Students need to be encouraged and assisted in developing a wider range of techniques to help them cope with the increasing complexity of physics problems at tertiary level.

In a survey at the end of the semester, most students agreed that the time spent developing these skills in lectures was useful to them, although most were also against more lecture time being allocated to develop these skills. The results also indicate that problem solving was thought to be more useful than skim reading or note taking. This is not surprising given that students know that they will be assessed on their ability to solve a wide range of problems.

In this paper, the methodology for teaching these skills, results of student surveys, and the observations of the lecturer will be presented.

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