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There is always going to be a certain disconnect - professors largely come from strong undergraduate programs where they excelled, and then went to very strong graduate programs where they did at least pretty well. They have had more and better math and physics than most of their students, and understood it better. They will have struggled less than the substantial majority of their students. This is indeed a teaching issue, and a challenge in engineering and all other fields.</p>
<p>There is no one solution to this. Every one learns in different ways, and it is physically impossible for any one professor to teach to more than a couple of learning styles in the time allotted.</p>
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The problem is often not explaining how the principles apply, the problem is finding examples that both directly illustrate the principle in question and yet are obvious enough to make sense to someone who is having substantial problems understanding the principle itself. And in many cases, the answer is “you apply this directly - that’s the only way to do it.” Which is 100% true and still sounds like a cop out.</p>