Hello

Technical Focus

When tutoring statics and dynamics, the biggest challenge I see is the gap in fundamentals. For example, most students understand what a cross product is and how to calculate it, but how to find it in physics, and what it means, is a different story. Understanding how concepts interrelate is the biggest gap I see so far. Students won’t remember material from last year, because they never truly understood the concepts, and instead, memorized steps until the end-of-year exam. This method can ensure that a student will receive a good grade at the end of the year, but it’s not a measure of how well they absorbed the fundamentals of the material. Physics is the first building block of the rest of the engineering curriculum. If it’s not taught and mastered at first, it will cause problems in everything else. That is why physics is the most crucial class in transitioning from memorization and mimicry to confident, independent problem solving.

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In engineering, tests become not only a measure of technical competence, but of creativity as well. Sometimes, a task isn’t necessarily about whether you can calculate the answer, but how clever and creative you can be in proving you know the answer. Conceptual mastery can eliminate the need for complex calculation. This is where the engineering mindset comes into play. How did I develop this? I was taught physics for two years by an actual engineer. Learning from the same instructor for multiple years allows the time to solidify the engineer’s approach and practice it in other subjects.

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How does this approach manifest in test-taking strategies? Finding impossibilities, doing things backward for efficiency, identifying the assessment logic within a question, etc. When sharing these strategies, they must be presented in a way where students discover them themselves through guided questioning techniques. I’d rather have them build out a new strategy than have me just demonstrate it in front of them. Being shown something doesn’t build confidence–doing the mental labor to arrive at conceptual understanding does.