2021 Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Reports
2021
N/A
How do undergraduate engineering students engage with puzzle problems related to first-order differential equations?
Page: 48
This paper explores how undergraduate engineering students engage with puzzle problems related to first-order differential equations. One hundred and thirty- five undergraduate engineering students engaged with four puzzle problems related to first-order differential equations in self-selected groups of two or three students while their communications were audio recorded. The findings related to one of these problems are reported here. The results show that many students struggled with identifying how DEs could be used for modeling real-world situations, and as a consequence of that, they solved the puzzle using their physics knowledge. The findings suggest that more focus should be paid to including modeling (or puzzle) tasks in DEs courses to help engineering students engage in higher-order thinking, develop thinking skills and problem-solving strategies needed for their future careers and advanced courses.