Re: [Phys-L] physics and potatoes

[Dan Beeker <debeeker@comcast.net>]

I must throw in my two bits worth. I have encountered many such questions as a student and as an instructor. I generally found them to be confusing and frustrating because 1. The instructor didn't just come out and say the question is meant to be a discussion question and 2. The instructor did not say there may not be an exact, i.e. right or wrong answer. This put me in a position of wondering is there an acceptable answer? Then I would ask the teacher - what is the correct answer with a response of "I don't know." or "I can't tell you."  I would spend so much time wondering what an appropriate response to the question would be I would miss important parts of the lesson that followed. I suppose one should always be on guard for ill posed or open ended questions questions but somewhere along the line it is really helpful to the student to be given some guidance as to a correct/i.e. reasonable response. There's nothing wrong with saying it is an ill posed question from the git go.

If a student is constantly wondering "is this a discussion question" or "is it learn a rote task question" the student will often be focusing on the wrong aspect of the material being presented. I see it all the time in teaching our lab courses. In short, be careful how you present such questions as well as be explicit in explaining your answers (or lack thereof). Confusion is not always the student's fault.

Dan


On Jan 13, 2015, at 12:00 PM, phys-l-request@www.phys-l.org wrote:

> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 08:07:24 -0600
> From: "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>
> To: <Phys-L@Phys-L.org>
> Subject: Re: [Phys-L] physics and potatoes
> Message-ID: <D5D6C8E27E9140CBBB7DF1DCAB277680@ClementPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hmmm.  Is convection really minimized, as the air circulates around the
> potato with or without foil?  I would say the retention of moisture is a big
> factor because evaporation can cool things rapidly.  This may be the largest
> effect here.  But since some cooks claim it cooks faster in foil there may
> be other answers.  As to Hewitt's answer, it depends on what the cook wants,
> and is not just a matter of physics.
>
> I still say it is a discussion question which may not have a unique answer.
> As such it can be a very good question.  It is an example of an open ended
> question.  Only having students ponder questions which have one unique
> approved answer kills a lot of thinking skills.  If I used this question, I
> would probably not tell them the "approved" answer, but I would try to get
> them to use good physics ideas rather than everyday reasoning, even if no
> definite answer emerges.
>
> John M. Clement
> Houston, TX