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Re: [Phys-l] Unit Conversions (was Mass and Energy)



Even though it is dangerous to assume we know what someone else is thinking, it is part of human nature and part of the communication process to make this kind of assumption. It's also a good idea to keep exploring for evidence we are correct or incorrect about our assumptions.

When a student comes for help, I first try to assess where the student went wrong, and then I try to assess whether it was a simple blunder or if there is some deeper misunderstanding that needs corrected. And, of course, I often follow their questions with questions of my own. Sometimes this works very well. Other times the students don't cooperate at all. The fact they don't cooperate, and the method in which they don't cooperate, is not speculation. That's the data. The assumptions I draw from the data are admittedly assumptions.

In the story I told, the student refused to answer my questions. He short-circuited the process I was trying to use and kept asking for a simple answer for how to fix his calculation That's the data. Here are some more data. The lab report was due in a few hours, his calculation was wrong, and he knew it was wrong. I also knew he had a habit of goofing conversions, so there was good reason to suspect this was not a simple blunder. So he was in my office asking for help, and I saw he had made an error of the type I knew he had made before. I decided it was time to see if I could help him understand conversions better. Again... no assumptions have been made.

Okay, here come the assumptions. I think it is clear he did not want to understand it better, at least not at that time. Since refused to take the time to work it through with me and he kept asking for the simple answer, I take that as a pretty good indication he did not want to work it through, at least not at that time. I assume he wanted to get the lab report done, hand it in, and go on to something else he would rather do.

I remember my own son and daughter giving me the same sort of problem. They both, on numerous occasions, would say something like the following to me... "If I would ask you a question about my physics (or math or chemistry) homework, would you be willing to give me the short version?" I can understand that sometimes, and I even agreed to it sometimes. But when a student is paying my salary, and I know the student has a fundamental problem, I think it is improper for me to give "the short answer" except for rare occasions. I am not the answer man. I am the teacher. Whenever the student does not accept that relationship, I figure the student does not want to learn... at least not at that time. If the student never seems to want to accept the relationship, I assume the student is not interested in learning at all, at least not from me.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu