Today I wanted my first year students to measure the moment of inertia of two rotating masses, I don't have enough equipment for individual experiments in fact I only have enough for 2 x 2 variations so I was looking for another practical to enable smaller groups. I failed so decided to try the practical with groups of 3 or 4. I have written a
worksheet for the practical but on the spur of the moment decided to try a different approach. I simply said here is the apparatus so you can apply a torque and measure the angular acceleration, use it to find the moment of inertia of two rotating masses. I actually said a bit more than that but the point is they had to work out what to do. I think it worked better than the usual following instructions type of lab work, more discussion and greater focus on the problem. When given the method there is no need to debate what needs to be done. The larger groups may also have contributed to the interactive nature of the class. Lots of incorrect calculations at first but by working out their own way of manipulating the data the students learnt much more (I think).