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Re: Scientific method was physical pendulums/ an opportunity



Interesting ideas are flowing around. Here at UWF we've decided to
standardize on the following approach for exams:

Students are only allowed to use a basic-function calculator that we
provide. (I do tell the students where they can buy the exact same
calculator for $9 if they want to.) I bring them to the first class and we
all together practice some basic calculations: how to enter 10^-7 in
scientific notation (!), how to take arctan(1) in degrees vs. radians (!!),
where are the square root and reciprocal buttons, etc. I then bring the
calculators every class so students can practice using them *as we do
actual problems in class*. (Yes, I "waste" precious class time typing
numbers into calculators! But I figure I have to model *every* step if I
expect students to do so on exams, and it gives me an opportunity to show
them tricks for using calculators more efficiently and with less chance for
"dumb" mistakes. Heck, for some of them, this may be the *only* useful
skill they get out of the course, sigh.)

No equations are given, but *select* constants and material values are. I
clearly tell students what they have to know and what they don't. I always
emphasize the core equations they have to learn and hope most students
learn them through repeated use. Some will have to "cram" I'm sure, but oh
well, we'll always have a range of students in these kinds of courses no
matter what you do or don't allow.

The rest is not standardized, but I don't give any multiple guess
questions. I put a few derivation type problems on exams. Good examples are
range, height, flight time for a projectile returning to its launch height,
and Kepler's third law. I tell students they have to know these and tell
them why these formulas are (i) very important for many applications, and
(ii) too hard to memorize correctly. For all other problems I accept
numerical solutions provided they first write down the equations in symbols
before inserting numbers and provided they retain units at every step. All
problems on exams are done in class and students are told they have to do
them according to the same basic format, although they may use other
approaches (eg. as Leigh pointed out, use the distance quadratic equation
rather than the time one if they don't mind using two equations instead of
one; use energy methods vs. kinematic-dynamic methods; etc.). Yes, for many
students they'll be simply "regurgitating" on exams. I just hope
regurgitating *something* is better than not regurgitating *anything*. What
do you think - is it a meaningful step to learning or am I just kidding
myself? What should we test for and how?

Dr. Carl E. Mungan, Assistant Professor http://www.uwf.edu/~cmungan/
Dept. of Physics, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514-5751
office: 850-474-2645 (secretary -2267, FAX -3323) email: cmungan@uwf.edu