I have clearly been stalling on writing this description of my rationale for homework in the context of physics. I have an abundance of opinions about this topic myself and the interwebs have even more. There are some studies that seem to suggest that doing homework has little discernable correlation with grade success in physics. Of course there is also some evidence that grades themselves are correlated with less overall learning. What a mess......
Until such time as our understanding of the role of homework becomes more clear here is how I am going to approach this matter. As Malcom Gladwell has suggested it seems to take serious, effortful practice to get good at anything. The practice needs to involve sustained effort, confusion and challenges, and real world meaningful (sometimes called authentic) problems. Homework can be a tool to help accomplish this. Homework is not so effective when it is "drill and kill" or mindless repetition and pattern matching. To be most helpful problems need to have appropriate ambiguity in them. They must force us to consider and then reconsider our understanding of core concepts. In that process we will need to construct our own way to make sense of the concepts and processes.
This is my intention with the homework problems I write but I have no doubt that many of my problems fall short of this goal. I'm always interested in hearing which ones pushed you hard but also led to insights. I hope you focus on the process and your understand and spend little time seeking the "right" answer. Good luck!
Homework Problems
Homework Solutions
- HW Math Skills
