Some studies have found that students’ understanding of physics becomes less accurate after they have completed an introductory college physics course. The conventional, and widely ineffective, approach to teaching physics is based on a brainbound model of cognition: individuals are expected, like computers, to solve problems by applying a set of abstract rules. Yet the fact is that—very unlike computers—humans solve problems most effectively by imagining themselves into a given scenario, a project that is made easier if the human in question has had a previous physical encounter on which to
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