Problem design in homework

Abstract

In some engineering courses, such as Engineering Mechanics and Circuit Analysis, almost all of the basic concepts and laws have been introduced in General Physics. Therefore, the emphasis of these courses is on the methods and skills in problem solving. However, the solution manuals for most textbooks can be downloaded from the internet, and thus many students just copy the solutions without trying to solve the assigned homework problems. If this short-cut approach is not effectively prohibited, these students will learn very little in these courses. When they start to take the following advanced courses, such as Fluid Mechanics and Electronic Circuits, these students will have tremendous trouble and are likely to fail. There are a number of approaches that can avoid this problem, such as the flipped classroom. We adopted a new approach: A subgroup of students were asked to redesign the homework problems, and then the altered problems were assigned to the whole class. There are two direct benefits in this approach. First, students cannot find the solutions of these redesigned problems, so they have to work out the solution by themselves. Second, in the designing process students can develop a deeper understanding of the underlying knowledge structure and are empowered in the problem solving process.