start early.

• They do not wait until the night before homework is due to start on it. This gives you the opportunity to re-read the book, seek out help, or come back to exercises you had difficulty with.

work their solutions out on paper.

• They do not sit at the computer punching numbers into their calculator.

work out complete, clearly labeled solutions.

• This makes it easy to go back over them—to figure out where you made a mistake, to get help from your teacher or another student, or to review for a test. You may want to keep them all in a notebook.

• See previous point. If you are going to use a printout from WebAssign, at least turn it over.

use a good, systematic problem strategy.

• GOAL is the main one we use in this class, but there are other similar strategies around. Some problems are easy enough to solve with out one, but think of them as practice for those problems you can’t solve without a strategy.

start by identifying the physics involved.

• From that they identify equations to use, any additional information they need to obtain and information that is superfluous.

work out an algebraic solution before getting out the calculator.

• Algebraic solutions are easier to find your mistakes, compare with your fellow students, and review later.

check their work before entering it in the computer.

• Make sure that it is a reasonable value and has right units. It is faster to check it right away then to come back and figure out what you did wrong.

work with other students.

• If you make it your goal to really make sure everyone understands why (and not just get "the answer") this can be a very good learning experience.