Monthly Archives: October 2011

Student misunderstandings

The second external meeting I attended last week, this time at the University of Warwick, was a meeting of the Institute of Physics Higher Education Group entitled ‘Conceptual understanding : beyond diagnostic testing’. The messages that I’ve come home with … Continue reading

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Better by design

Although I’m still trying to find time to rewrite S151 Maths for Science (hence the previous posts about students’ mathematical misconceptions) I am also incredibly busy with other things. Last week I attended two external meetings, both excellent, so I’ll take … Continue reading

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The case of units and variables

I’ve talked about students’ difficulties with units before – on 10th and 15th March 2011. In addition to the deeper problems that students encounter, they frequently give the incorrect case when writing abbreviations for units. When they write Kg instead … Continue reading

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Errors in finding the gradient of a graph

Consider the simple question shown below: This question is generally well answered, but when students make a mistake, what do they do wrong?

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