{"id":2382,"date":"2008-03-17T07:40:05","date_gmt":"2008-03-17T07:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/03\/17\/reforming-intro-labs\/"},"modified":"2008-03-17T07:40:05","modified_gmt":"2008-03-17T07:40:05","slug":"reforming-intro-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/03\/17\/reforming-intro-labs\/","title":{"rendered":"Reforming Intro Labs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at Physics and Physicists, ZapperZ is thinking about the intro curriculum, and offers a suggestion<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I believe that we should have a more open-ended experiment to be given to the students. So I’ll give an example. Note that while thing is something that I’ve thought about for a while, I’m still writing this off the top of my head. So there may be other problems with it that I haven’t carefully considered.<\/p>\n

Give them a problem to solve such as something like this:<\/p>\n

\n

Construct a pendulum clock. To make this clock useful, it would be helpful if the pendulum can swing back and forth once as close to 1 second as possible. Then each complete oscillation will take just one second. That way, this clock and measure time in increments of one second. You may use a stop watch to calibrate your pendulum to verify that it makes a one-second swing. Try to build this as accurately as possible. You must describe in detail in your lab report how you accomplish this task and why you chose to do it this way.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now, as apparatus, give them a length of string, a set of weights, and a stop watch, plus other necessary items for them to be able to mount the pendulum on something.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to explain what he expects would happen in the class, and how this would be a valuable learning experience for the students. Go over there for the details.<\/p>\n

I like this idea a lot. It’s a nice approach to the problems he explored in earlier<\/a> posts<\/a>. If I were teaching intro mechanics next term, I would definitely steal this idea.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I’m not teaching intro mechanics, I’m teaching honors intro E&M. And I’m having a hard time thinking of analogous experiments for that material. This is why I have smart reader, though– do any of you have suggestions of analogous non-cookbook labs to do with an honors first-year E&M class?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at Physics and Physicists, ZapperZ is thinking about the intro curriculum, and offers a suggestion: I believe that we should have a more open-ended experiment to be given to the students. So I’ll give an example. Note that while thing is something that I’ve thought about for a while, I’m still writing this off… Continue reading Reforming Intro Labs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-education","category-physics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}