Want students to solve more practice problems? Try this.

Most textbooks in STEM disciplines include at the end of every chapter a number of practice problems.  Solving these problems (or at least trying to) is, in my view, one of the best ways for students to learn the material in a given text.  Because solving problems is an effective tools for learning, I assign some of these problems as homework to be turned in and graded.  Unfortunately, attaching a grade to a homework problem has an unfortunate side effect.  Rather than try to solve these problems on their own, some students simply copy the solutions from their friends (or from a website).  These students get credit for "their" work, but miss the opportunity to learn.

Here is a simple remedy for the above-mentioned unwanted side effect.  I tell students that one of the problems on an upcoming exam will be similar to one of the homework problems in the textbook.  Doing this accomplishes two things.  First, because I do not specify which textbook problem I am referring to, I ensure that that students will look at all of the problems (or, at least as many of them as they have time for).  Second, by telling students that the exam problem will be similar to a textbook problem, I ensure that students will actually try to understand how to solve the textbook problems rather than simply copy the solutions.