How future computer programmers taught physics

A question published here made it clear that the topic is interesting.
General information:
St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University.
Department of distributed intelligent systems (In the past - the classic ACS).
Students of two groups of the first course in the field of "Informatics and computer engineering" and "Automated control systems and data processing."

First-year students always had a number of distinctive features by which they can be easily identified: almost everyone goes to classes, does not take notes, sometimes really listen attentively.

Lectures.
Regarding physics, unfortunately, an opinion has been formed that this is something complex and incomprehensible. If a student does not go to a physical specialty, then the attitude towards physics is precisely like something difficult-magical. Most of the audience pretends to listen, although it is obvious that this is not the case. But to stir and interest them is very simple. Only for each group need their own methods. Definitely you can say only one thing - everyone likes real-life examples. Tell me how to take an ordinary iron bar, measure it with a ruler and bring out the sound speed formula in the metal right in front of them, without additional constructions, and the guys are smarter right away switch all their attention to the board. Tell the physical meaning of the barrel and pit, why reverb is used so privately in trance music - and the second part of the audience also switches to you. At this point, you can quickly slip the modulation sound. A lecture is a show where the main task is to interest the child, and not to mumble something under his breath. I have always been amazed by the strange habit of teachers to rewrite formulas on a blackboard from their own lecture notes and force students to rewrite the same formulas from the board to themselves in a notebook. Isn't it easier to give out all your notes to all of them and to spend most of the time not on machine rewriting, but on explaining every detail. And the students are wonderful and with great pleasure, as my practice has shown, they make their own notes, draw on my copies, including colored pens.
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Laboratory.
The biggest problem in laboratory work is the credibility of teachers. Students measure lines on the screen with rulers, and tell how the RLC circuit itself oscillates and even calculate fundamental constants with an error of several thousand percent. You always want to provoke the student so that he starts to prove his point of view and the correctness of the result. But instead, his beautiful, correct, well-formed result is sent to the trash by the student himself only because he immediately accepts the opinion of the teacher without even trying to look at his own correct results. At a certain point, I realized that in no case should I ask a student to substantiate the result obtained starting from the opposite. The only effective measure was praise, if everything was done correctly, and a detailed, step-by-step explanation of where and why an error occurred, if the result is not correct. Of course, this takes a lot of time, but it brings, I hope, an understanding of the experiment that they have just carried out. Unfortunately, an extremely rare student's puzzle of mathematics, physics, and ordinary visual perception develops into a single, holistic picture of understanding.

Materiel
Without a doubt, that 1-2 people out of 100 know the physical meaning of mathematical abstractions. At best. The knowledge that children received at school is so chaotic and scattered that it’s not easy to put everything in one pile. At the same time, the curriculum is structured in such a way that, not having learned about some mathematical constructions from the course of mathematical analysis, students are given formulas of electromagnetism and require understanding. In this situation, I just found myself at a dead end. The simplest example is the integral over the contour. They, the students, are told about him only in the second year of the study of mathematical analysis. But one must be able to take such integrals in the first year. This is a view from the education system.
Look at the problems in understanding the students themselves. Derivatives as well as the limits of the students learn back in school. The same applies to the simplest integrals. At best, 10% of students know what will happen if we take the derivative of speed over time. I suggested that it might be easier for them to see it as a limit - but it was not there. Of course, the most diligent, but not endowed with analytical consciousness (or blocking it?) Eventually learn such things by heart, and even memorize how to find work done by the body on schedule. But as soon as we move a little bit away from matter, we move to the field of fields, that is, we move from mechanics to electromagnetism, where it is impossible to build a visual model, and only indirect signs, such as field strength, amperage, can be analyzed - the largest Problems.
For myself, I called such things conditionally mental blockades. As soon as a person begins to understand, realize, feel the fundamental relationship, the meaning of infinitely small differentials. As soon as he grasps the essence, that nothing is invented just like that, but taken from the world around him, he begins to extract additional meanings. The mathematical model of the phenomenon allows him to immediately understand how the object described using this model will behave in the real world. The reverse is also true. Seeing a certain phenomenon, the student begins to understand which material model for this object or phenomenon will be the most adequate. Begins to use his knowledge of mathematical analysis to extract additional meanings and new findings. Those. overcomes that mental blockade. Such people are no more than 1-2 people per stream. And working with them is a real pleasure.

Exam.
Not all, of course, successfully passed the exam. Some had to come again five, but no one was eliminated. Although it will be worse. Sooner or later they will not master something else.
All students for some reason believe that if they learn all the formulas or write them down, they will pass the exam well. Honestly, I know from strength a few simple formulas and a few not simple ones that I often use. For everyone else there is a directory and google. But from somewhere the guys took such an opinion and impression, which prevents them during the preparation. Every time I ask for an understanding of the topic, an understanding of the subject matter. And they are trying to poke fingers written off formulas. It is a little sad. Many can not name what this or that letter in the formula means. But those who are still preparing for the examination for understanding, demonstrate the opposite. They do not remember the formulas, but they remember how the effect is formed. And almost always can in a short time to bring the desired formula. I do not want to say anything bad about girls, but observation shows that almost all girls and only a small part of young people use the first way, by memorizing (yes, ugly memorizing) formulas. For some reason, young people are so lazy that they are trying to understand the essence, because this is faster than learning. That's how laziness helps them in preparing for the exams.

This is probably all that was worth mentioning. If you have any questions - I will be glad to answer them.