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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: 2things rapidly.
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
This may be the largest effect here. But since some cooks claim ita matter of physics.
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 unique answer.
I still say it is a discussion question which may not have
As such it can be a very good question. It is an exampleof an open
ended question. Only having students ponder questionswhich have one
unique approved answer kills a lot of thinking skills. IfI 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 thaneveryday
reasoning, even if no definite answer emerges.
John M. Clement
Houston, TX
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