Suggestion 19. Pose paradoxes for students to solve

IF YOU WANT TO:

• Emphasize conceptual understanding

• Have students apply concepts to demonstrate understanding

• Challenge students to think

  YOU MAY WISH TO:

  Pose paradoxes for the students to solve.

  A chemistry professor emphasizes conceptual understanding by challenging the students with apparent paradoxes. "Several times each semester," he says, "I set up a demonstration to give a visual result that is at variance with that which is described in the textbook. The students are then helped to explain the paradox by applying a variety of problem solving techniques."

  "This kind of demonstration really gets the students thinking," he says. "Furthermore, many of the students tell me that they learn much more from seeing than from reading. It gives them another way of understanding and helps them gain self-confidence that they do in fact understand."

  Limitations on Use of Suggestion

  
    Discipline:  Sciences primarily
  Course Level:  None
   Course Size:  None
          Mode:  None
  

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