Tag Archives: Physics 100
TAPD mini-modules week 5: Closing the feedback loop
This semester, we’ve carved out time from the Teaching Assistants’ normal duties—a half-hour per week—to use for professional development activities. This post series tracks our weekly goals and activities. As an instructor or TA, teaching evaluations are part of the job. As the end of the semester nears, students fill out university mandated evaluation forms, […]
TAPD mini-modules week 4: But, are students really learning?
This semester, we’ve carved out time from the Teaching Assistants’ normal duties—a half-hour per week—to use for professional development activities. This post series tracks our weekly goals and activities. “We’re going to derive this, but I need your help with it.” This was my lead-in to the set of clicker questions we used to derive […]
TAPD mini-modules week 3: “Does F=ma in real life or only in physics?”
This semester, we’ve carved out time from the Teaching Assistants’ normal duties—a half-hour per week—to use for professional development activities. This post series tracks our weekly goals and activities. “Does F=ma in real life or only in physics?” Students say the darnedest things. Over my years as a TA and instructor, I’ve had many interactions […]
Car eyes and parting thoughts: Pre-class overheads (November 25 – 29)
(This is the final post of a semester long series. Each week, as a lecture TA in Physics 100, I choose a pre-class overhead for each of the two lectures I help out in. I attempt to choose images that connect to the current material and that are fun and possibly provocative. Here, I keep a […]
Overloaded plugs and infrared images: Pre-class overheads (November 18 – 22)
(This post is part of an ongoing, semester long series. Each week, as a lecture TA in Physics 100, I choose a pre-class overhead for each of the two lectures I help out in. I attempt to choose images that connect to the current material and that are fun and possibly provocative. Here, I keep […]
Orange batteries and dogs in PhET circuits: Pre-class overheads (November 11 – 15)
(This post is part of an ongoing, semester long series. Each week, as a lecture TA in Physics 100, I choose a pre-class overhead for each of the two lectures I help out in. I attempt to choose images that connect to the current material and that are fun and possibly provocative. Here, I keep […]
Igloos and big sweaters: Pre-class overheads (October 28 – November 1)
(This post is part of an ongoing, semester long series. Each week, as a lecture TA in Physics 100, I choose a pre-class overhead for each of the two lectures I help out in. I attempt to choose images that connect to the current material and that are fun and possibly provocative. Here, I keep […]
Simpsons and prone bikes: Pre-class overheads (October 21 – 25)
This week, we continued talking about conservation of energy and the work-energy theorem and began to talk about power. Something I did not appreciate when I first learned these concepts was how power-ful they really are. Some of the problems we did in lecture include estimating the fuel efficiency of a car and estimating how much […]
Roller coasters and Red Bull Stratos: Pre-class overheads (October 14 – 18)
This week in Physics 100, we began talking about mechanical energy. For our first class this week, I went back to what I feel is one of the canonical examples of mechanical energy conservation: the roller coaster. This is something I explicitly remember as being the topic of energy problems in my high school physics […]
From strings to science education 