Should we embrace or avoid questions that are simply lists of tips and tricks?

Question

The easiest question to ask a professional educator is:

• I have noticed problem X in my classroom. What have you tried to address this problem?

I worry that this creates poor questions for a StackExchange site, because every question becomes a soft question, with no answer more "correct" than any other. This makes voting somewhat confusing; we would like to +1 the correct answers, but every answer is equally correct.

Maybe I am incorrect, or maybe this is not a problem at all, but I think it is worth discussing.

Answer 1

It often helps to be specific. Consider this question: What are some good simple examples that getting the right result is not enough?

Let's go back to the beginning: what are we trying to accomplish here? I think the problem is that students often look at math as a subject where getting the answer right is all that matters. With my own son, I know that I struggle to help him think through the process required to arrive at the answer when all he wants to do is guess. The purpose of gathering examples of wrong processes that result in correct answers is (if I understand) to help students grasp the importance of using the proper process.

Asking for such examples might help you or some future reader solve the original problem, but not directly. I have a friend who loved to prove that $$1 + 1 = 4$$ or somesuch. The proof depended on an illicit division by zero and was a fun puzzle to sort out. I could easily imagine a scenario where the proof could be used in a teaching situation to teach the importance of using correct methods. But that's not what he used it for; it was just a bit of fun. And we hate fun.

You see the primary purpose of this site is to help mathematics educators solve problems that arise from their vocation. When I'm trying to help my son work out homework problems after he guesses the correct answer, my problem isn't that I don't have a portfolio of counter-examples demonstrating the dangers of being lazy. Showing him one or two examples might be part of my strategy, but they aren't useful teaching techniques on their own.

In order to be a useful Q&A site, the vast majority of questions should focus on specific teaching situations and few (if any) should be general tips and tricks. You are expert educators and this is your site. Don't settle for questions that just anyone can answer. Whenever possible ask questions with specific students, topics, methods, and situations in mind. If you are preparing to teach why division by zero is not defined and anticipate a student asking why we don't just define $${x\over 0} = 0$$ ask that question and I'll dig up the proof that shows why that's a bad idea.

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It seems I need to clarify a few things. Closing questions is better than the alternative. This has always been a struggle; I myself once wrote Closing Questions Considered Harmful. But I've come to embrace early closing, which serves at least two useful purposes:

1. It avoids wasting time on answers that do not maximize the expertise of the community. There are tons of sites where math educators swap teaching examples. But this proposal was initiated on Area 51 because many saw a need for a site where teachers can ask questions that arise from their day-to-day work.

2. More importantly, it helps maintain the "expert" nature of the site. One of the best arguments comes from one of our co-founder's talk about the Cultural Anthropology of Stack Exchange. As a network, we value answers of permanent value and so we politely decline to field certain types of questions. When an expert visits one of our sites, we expect them to see questions that they are uniquely qualified to answer and to evaluate the answers. Bike shed questions are expecially hazardous to the first impression of a site. A few "fun" questions are fine, but they have to be the absolute cream of the crop.

It's better to have ten questions prompted by specific experiences than one general (and giant) question. Compiling a list of tips and tricks isn't that much a waste of time, but maintaining it can be. How many people have really read all 38 answers to the Math.SE version of the question? What about all the comments? Did all those people vote (up or down) on the answers? Stack Exchange questions get unwieldy much beyond 5 answers.

Meanwhile, if the question had been about teaching fifth grade using the Common Core Standards when a student asks why it's not good enough to get the right answer, the responses stand to be extremely useful to all teachers who find themselves in that position. We'd rather cover lots of questions extremely well than a few questions. Again, the strength of the network lies in getting help with deep issues that experts actually face.

Answer 2

I suppose with a question phrased as "what have you tried to address this problem?" it's technically true that every (honest) answer is equally "correct", but if the question were phrased as "what is a good (or the best) way to address this problem?" then some answers could be more correct than others. It does seem potentialy problematic that there is no unique correct answer; but actually I have a hard time thinking of any questions to ask on this site that would have a unique correct answer.

Answer 3

The OP needs some clarification of exactly what is meant by "simply" lists.

One thing many teachers love, at high school level any way, is ready availability of resources that minimise their preparation time so that they can focus on what's important. A lot of resource sharing goes on in high schools. This type of issue would lead to list type answers. If someone ends using them inappropriately, I don't see that the idea of the list itself is encouraging that. And fun, why shouldn't there be a little fun in the classroom?

The idea of answering a question and getting voted as the best is more of a concrete content based thing (than it is a "many ways to skin a cat" teaching thing) where encouragement of good solutions is logical when solutions, due to cold hard mathematical logic can be readily compared. But, even on Maths.SE, for example, questions don't always have to be closed by a ticked answer and many ticked answers are followed later in time by answers that turn out to be somewhat better (in my opinion) but only end up with acknowledgement based on up votes.

A list of examples can continue to be voted on as interested parties come to find examples they haven't seen before and might be handy to use and vote up the ones they like (and possibly even down vote ones they think are inappropriate - who knows?). There are some very good lists at TeX.SE that serve as good examples of this.

I think it's clear though that any list should be focussed and where possible some explanation of the particular utility of provided examples based on experience would be good. Which particular method works is often a function of the individual teacher's personality. What doesn't work well for one may work very well for another. And often by explaining how you tried one thing that failed you may get another perspective that gives a variation that will make it work next time.

And I really don't see how allowing list type questions in general is going to lead to questions that anyone can answer if they're framed well enough.

Answer 4

I do not think that lists of tips and tricks are a problem, but the questions should have a reasonable scope.

The wording "What have you tried?" is questionable, but I really do think that "Please give only useful answers." goes without stating it explicitly. I am quite opposed to the proposed restriction that only people should answer who have already been in that situation. This is unreasonable because they could about a solution, from colleagues, from a study, etc and thus give a good answer.

Answer 5

One way to avoid questions which generate a wide zoo of random tips & tricks is to rephrase the question. Instead of "I have noticed problem X in my classroom. What have you tried to address this problem?", one could ask

• I have noticed problem X in my classroom. How did you successfully address this problem? How and why did it work?

I think that this can help to make answers thorough and be able to explain. I don't think that first-hand experience is strictly required; anecdotes from colleagues or conferences, quotes from text books as well studies can also provide this kind of answers, provided there is some kind of discussion of the method and not just mentioning it.