A couple of years ago we became so disenchanted with the way we were doing labs that we got crazy and actually changed something (we needed to do this prior to receiving tenure or it would likely never have happened). What caused this disenchantment was manyfold, but two main problems were: 1) students were not utilizing lab time effectively and actually striving to learn something; 2) as a consequence of the first point, the lab reports, and especially the conclusions, were subpar at best. In an effort to remedy this situation, we came up with the idea of “challenge labs.” In these labs the students are asked to predict a result for their apparatus given certain parameters that are within the bounds of the experiments just completed. The prediction is then tested and points are awarded based on the outcome. We have found that this method has largely been effective in solving the above two difficulties.

Topics
Educational assessment
1.
For the “Angular Momentum” challenge, roughly rectangular shaped objects whose moments of inertia have been empirically found are passed out. Although the precision here looks deadly, given the units these are actually fairly easily attainable values.
2.
A. J.
Greer
and
E. A.
Kincanon
, “
An experiment with Saxon bowls
,”
Phys. Teach.
38
,
112
(Feb.
2000
).
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© 2005 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2005
American Association of Physics Teachers
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