Abstract:

Science studies use problem exercises to evaluate the understanding of concepts, the capability of relating ideas and the ability of reasoning. Traditionally, the professor designs the problem exercises and/or recommends some bibliography where appropriate exercises can be found. This practice implies that many students learn the “standard” type of exercises without achieving full understanding of the underlying concepts. Then, these students have difficulties when the same problem is set out differently or new problems are presented. We have implemented an initiative to overcome this situation.

The idea is that the students should design original problem exercises of the subjects they are studying. The objective is that by doing so, they will organize the concepts hierarchically and establish relationships between them. This process aims at stimulating their creativity so that when the students face new problems, they have mental tools and strategies to face them.

In practice, the students are grouped to design the original problem exercises about given topics whose difficulty is appropriate for the final course exam. After inspection and approval of the professor, the problems are shared with the class and all groups have to solve the problems of their classmates. Finally, each group marks, annotates the mistakes and corrects the solutions of the other groups. By evaluating the solutions, they learn what is to be expected of an answer when a problem is presented.

This methodology has been tested in the Bachelor Degree of Chemistry (Chemistry II and Chemical Physics III courses), in the Bachelor Degree of Biochemistry (Chemistry II course) and in the Bachelor Degree of Physics (Chemistry I course).

Keywords:

Problem Design, Creativity.