How to Model It: Problem Solving for the Computer Age

I have used this book to provide a basis for modeling exercises on quite different topics: in this case, developmental psychology. I found the principles illustrated with these projects very helpful in teaching the process of modeling. It helps to turn a word problem into a quantitative one, and illustrates how to solve it with simple tools. For my students, their biggest problem is in making that leap. What the student or teacher needs to bring to this book is the ability to abstract the principles and apply them in novel ways.

This book will be useful to anyone who needs to solve problems in the engineering or scientific world. The authors believe that constructing models is an essential step in the problem solving process. This book contains a sequence of problems which the authors help you to solve by constructing models. The authors ask you a lot of questions to help you construct the models and even provide their own answers (after several pages) in case you are stuck. They then provide you some of the theory involved. You are approached as a student in their "classroom", and you are taking a class in building models. Although the book makes you think, it does not have a true "readability" that would let me give it 5 stars.