To help students develop both conceptual-analysis skills and problem-solving skills at the same time, we take students through a sequence of learning experiences.
First, students explore their pre-existing notions so that they do not interfere with scientific concepts.
Second, students sharpen, link, and interrelate concepts, creating a rich network of ideas that helps them to understand and remember concepts.
Third, students learn how to use concepts to analyze and to reason about common situations, which makes it possible for students to solve interesting, unusual, or complex problems.
Fourth, students develop general problem-solving skills based on expert-like strategies using principles, rather than novice-like approaches using superficial features.
Fifth, students organize and prioritize their knowledge so that it is particularly useful for both problem solving and analysis.
A consequence of this approach is that students can solve more difficult problems than students who follow a traditional approach, and they usually improve their reasoning skills and develop a deeper understanding of concepts and principles. Concepts, rather than equations, become the language students use to learn and to do physics.