Re: [Phys-l] Traditional Labs and Online Simulations

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 02/10/2012 10:18 AM, Sean Grealis wrote:
> I always view my labs
> as a way for students to investigate and explore natural phenomena,

Indeed!

> My main concern with this is that the
> simulation will “give away the answers” as it were.

I reckon that is the least of your worries, for multiple reasons:

 1) I've (almost) never heard a student complain that things 
  were too easy.  If things go smoothly, it allows students 
  to do more with the apparatus in the same amount of time.
  That's a good thing.

 2) If the experiment agrees with the numerical model, that's
  a good thing.  If not, that's a teachable moment also.

 3) Most importantly:  It is always good to make the school
  experience more closely resemble the real world.  Real-
  world scientists an engineers simulate the daylights out 
  of something before they build it.  DEVGRU spent weeks
  simulating the Abbottabad raid before they carried it out.

=======

On the other side of the same coin, as Phillip Keller points
out, the ones you need to worry about are the ones who are
so clueless that they don't get much out of the simulation
*or* the actual apparatus.

Also:  It is possible to have too much of a good thing, such
as too much simulation.  However, this is an easy problem to
avoid.  Common sense should suffice to keep you out of trouble.

===============================

Tangential, but important:

On 02/10/2012 12:11 PM, Rauber, Joel wrote:
> > if nothing else, my students will leave the laboratory knowing how to
> > read a ruler.  And as a consumer of the education of my fellow
> > citzenry, I'd rather they learn that than some more physics
> > concepts.

Amen, brother.

> > My main point is that in my opinion the lab is about a more than
> > merely being a vehicle for aiding the understanding of underlying
> > physics and/or concepts.  Naturally I hope the lab is doing that as
> > well.

Indeed!