Reflection: Week of 16th and 23rd

I am very sorry for the late post, as I have been swamped with exams all this week and last week.
Last week, I had one person come to my office hours for pre-exam prep, which I found very fun to do. This week, no one has come to my office hours as of yet so I have been reviewing the material we have gone over in class.

Well That Was Challenging

This week I had four students show up (two on Wed, two on Thurs).  About typical for me.  But here's a list of all the things untypical about it:
1. The professor didn't send me the homework this week (or I missed it or something; regardless, I didn't have it to prepare)
2. I had exams Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday so I didn't really have time to try and review my old notes on the topic this week (which I would've done to prep because of the reality of #1)
3. Kirchoff's rules are longggggg.  Fun, but long.  And when you have two students show up that barely were able to get any of their homework done, it takes awhile to work through all those problems, especially if you're trying to solve them on the spot yourself.

So, fun week.  But I do think the students that were really struggling made progress :)  Here's to next week being better!

Post-Exam Lethargy

Last week's exam offered a nice break for us UTA's from having to attend lecture, but this week it's been back to the grind - starting tough conceptual subjects like capacitors & magnetism. Despite the challenging lectures, the class seems more relaxed and even a bit lethargic - no doubt due to the next exam being over a month away and the imminent arrival of spring break. Office hours are quiet, but I don't mine... Can't say the lethargy isn't getting to me a little as well!

Such a Stressful Week------5th

I am sorry for the late post. Last week was so busy for me as I had four exams that I found it really hard to find some time doing my own things. As a result, I did not do well on two of them. To be honest, I have always been trying to find something that lasts for a long time to do while I am having classes in school since high school period. I think it is of great importance to learn to balance and schedule my time so that I can achieve both of the things pretty well. Such as finding a girlfriend, but numerous failures have told me it apparently seems tough to me. This semester I had this UTA, which is not hard but takes a lot of time. I feel like my real challenge has come around.  

Slow week and sad news

Now that the students have gotten their exams back, I have had almost no one come in this week. In addition, one of the students that comes regularly just withdrew from the course because his other classes were getting to be too much in addition to physics :( There is always room for physics! Hopefully he'll try again next semester; he was a bright student. I'm sad that I can no longer help him!

Week of Feb 24th

Hey guys,

As usual I had about 5 people attend my office hours this week. They mostly had questions on specific webassign problems and I was able to help them work through the problem and explain it so they understood. I also just went over some concepts from lecture that were a little unclear. It seemed to be helpful! I expect the rest of the semester to like pretty much exactly like this.

~Jessica

Upcoming Exam Panic

Last week I think I had the most amount of people I have had yet. Everyone is stressing about the upcoming exam, and from what I have gathered, the average for the last exam is extremely low. Students were confused about the difference in concepts of impulse and momentum, so I hope I was able to clear that up. But overall, the number of students coming to office hours has increased every week, so I am excited to see the turn out this week. I just hope that there stress about this test decreases, because there was lots of panicking.

It feels like I'm in 'I am Legend' ...

If you haven't seen 'I am Legend,' it is one of those post-apocalyptic films involving a lone human survivor (Will Smith), his pet dog and a bunch of zombies. Now, I had no zombies in either one of my review sessions, but I had very few people come in last week, so I was almost the only person in the room. Wednesday's session consisted of 2 and Friday was 1! Needless to say, I was happy to help out a few people this past week. Hopefully, this means the material has gotten easier for students.

Session 6

I asked the students during my last session about their second exam, and the response was generally better than the first exam. A lot of them were very appreciative of my advice and said that my strategies for going about physics problems helped them develop a systematic approach as well. However, several people still struggled, and I'm noticing that these people are typically the ones that haven't taken physics in high school. I've met with a couple of these people on my own time before the last exam and I'm really glad I did because I think it helped them a lot. Aside from talking about the previous exam, we started tackling the topic of momentum and impulse, and it sounds like we'll be hitting rotation and rolling this Thursday.

-Mike

Post exam 2 Thoughts and concerns

This past Tuesday I had a number of students come to me with exam 2 questions and concerns. They found the test to be pretty difficult. In addition, they were not to pleased about the test just consisting of multiple choice questions and felt like their knowledge was not being fully representative of the material by just this type of testing format. They feel like an open ended section would be more beneficial because it allows them to get partial credit. Also, we went over the recitation problem and some webassign homework.

Crazy Few Weeks

My office hours have been becoming more and more chaotic as these past few weeks have gone on.  In particular, I have tripled my usual time meeting with people individually.  I also tried something new last week with office hours, since some students wanted to conceptually go over how to do Ch. 5 general problems.  I tried to generally describe what the different variables meant, how they appear in a free body diagram, why you can do a, b, c, etc. with it (such as set Fc=uFn etc.).  This seemed to be MUCH more helpful than just going over homework problems (as I did not receive as many last minute panicked texts asking for help last week).

Anyhow, that is my major update for the past few weeks.  I also figured I would let you guys know that I am going to end up having to cancel my Tues. office hours next week so I can be at the hospital when my grandma has surgery, so some of you may see increased numbers if those people come to your hours instead (my busy day is Wed. not Tues. though so I don't imagine it will make a HUGE difference).

Karl

UTA Journal for the Week of February 17th

No students came into my office hours this week. Perhaps because most of my office hours took place after the exam. So this makes perfect sense. During my hours I glanced over the material that will be on the second exam.

Slow Week

This past week was, as everyone seems to be saying, exam week.  My class's exam was on Wednesday, and my office hours are Tuesday, Wednesday (after class), and Thursday.  Since they didn't have a homework due this week, I wasn't expecting anyone to show up Wednesday & Thursday, but to my surprise no one showed up Tuesday either.  I'm chalking it up to the fact that my hours on Tuesday are 9:30-10:30 AM and that's considered "early" for college students--especially when another UTA and the professor has office hours Tuesday afternoons (I'm a commuter and 9:15 is generally my normal arrival time unless I have class earlier than that, so I don't find 9:30 to be very early.  Although it helps that I'm a morning person).

So yeah, really this is a long-ish post describing a very boring week.  Next week should be interesting as I juggle my own exams and normal office hour attendance.

Exam Week

This was a very strange week! My office hours are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the students had their first exam Wednesday. As expected, I had LOTS of students Tuesday (a new record!) and only one (my regular) on Thursday.

February 20th Office Hours

Hello everyone,

So, I just realized that I forgot to write a post last week, so I'll be making up for that one here, hopefully. My office hours are generally not busy, still. I may have one or two people visit each week with specific questions about webassign problems and I generally feel like they understand them by the time they leave. I feel like my office hour times probably conflict with most of the students' schedules, but I don't really have any better time to hold them. I suppose I'm fine not being very busy. The one student that I had today said that they may stop back again, so I may start being busier, but we'll see if that actually happens.

Logan

Exam week

This week some people had trouble answering on particular question which did recognize correct answers. It turned out to be the small rounding tolerance that's causing troubles. The correct answer is very small (around 10^(-8)) and any errors build up from previous calculations will likely result in more than 20% percent error. It is the first time I saw this kind of problem bothering people.  

Another busy pre-exam day

I held two hours yesterday from 2pm-4pm. I tried providing the students with a procedure to follow when setting up force, centripetal force, and work/energy problems. It seemed as though 90% of the students' struggles were in the setup of the question, which is essential for any physics exam. Luckily, it seemed as though every student improved in his/her setup strategies, which I was very happy to see!

Exam week

This Thursday the students will be taking their first exam in Professor Daley's Physics 2 section... Hopefully it goes well for them. The other TA's and I made a facebook group a week or two ago, but no one's posted in it as of yet.

My office hours have been getting lonelier lately... I didn't have a single student last week, but I can foresee some coming in to get last minute exam help.

Monday Feb. 17th Session

Hey guys,

So this was my fifth week I believe, and as usual I had a few students come in and ask specific questions from Webassign. I worked on forces down a ramp as well as the normal force in various situations. I feel like they understood pretty well by the time they left. Usually I have about a whole hour where I kind of just hang around and do homework waiting for students, but I guess I'm good with that too. Some people were helped!

~Jessica

Exam week

Wednesday's review session followed the trend of the previous week: many students appeared and we reviewed several concepts they have learned throughout their PHY0175 experience. Most students showed themselves the door as there was a review session held specifically for the exam later that night. However, this was to be expected and I am happy to have helped those who stayed for the entire duration of my review session. Hope everyone did well!

Weekend Office Hours

This week I held an additional office hour on Sunday for the students in preparation for the 2nd exam. They had a lot of questions with apparent weight questions and were having trouble grasping this concept. The majority of students that came to me (had about 8 in total) seemed to be mostly prepared for the material on the test for Monday. Overall, the office hours was a success. I needed to stay an extra 45min to answer so many questions too!

Fourth Week--------Change!

Last Friday, we had the second exam in Physics 0110. Students got back their exam results, and we saw the overall statistics of the whole class which is not quite satisfactory. Students reflected that this exam was harder than the first one after they finished the exam. I agree because some questions are hard to understand. But generally speaking, it is still a fairly fundamental exam. It tells me that I need to do some changes from now on---go back to basis.

First Exam for Physics 111

We got the first physics exam coming in Daley's physics 111 class. I'm assuming everyone else is in a similar boat.

The other UTA's & I have started up our FB group (which isn't seeing much activity as of late), and we are planning to host a review session the day before the exam run solely be us. Let me know what if you got any ideas/events lined up for exam week!

Best,
Ant

Journal for Week of February 10th

No students came to my office hours this week except one student who stopped by for a quick touch up on a concept. I spent the rest of the time brushing up on exam topics.

Exam week, indeed!

This week was interesting--I had many students arrive on Wednesday for last minute exam questions (and bonus points opportunities!) But then, predictably, Friday after the exam there was not a single soul! Which is not surprising~ but hopefully student will continue to attend in the future..

-Natalie

What A Week

So I had my fifth session yesterday, and it was by far the largest one I've had. It was largely due to their exam being today, but at least 20 people came during the three hour session, and at one point I couldn't fit any more students in my room so we commandeered a larger room for the last hour. By the end of the session, I was pretty exhausted, but I felt like I really helped a lot of people. They definitely had more confidence about the upcoming exam when they left as opposed to when they came in. We probably went through about 10-15 problems, and I stressed the idea of having a four step system for each problem (Write down what you know, draw a picture and label the forces, write force equations, write energy conservation equations if necessary). I'm hoping they fare better on this exam than they did with the previous one.

-Mike

Almost exam time!!

The first exam is next Wednesday and I surprisingly haven't had many new students yet! I'm expecting a huge jump in attendance for my Tuesday office hours...

Week of 2/3

This week I didn't have anyone show up to my office hours, so I ended up reviewing this week's material during my office hours.

Test Review

Today I had a crowd of people throughout my three hours. People were confused with the conservation of energy topic, and we worked through the webassign problems about three times. Everyone was panicking. I hope that I helped in some way... Starting to see regulars that come every week which is nice!

This week's office hours

The units covered on Dr. Nero's next exam are: Newton's Laws, Circular Motion, and Work/Energy. I have been stressing to the students that for any type of problem that could appear on the upcoming exam, it is important to draw a diagram to aid in understanding the question. I find that I make far fewer mistakes when I draw a diagram and write down applicable equations, even though neither the diagram nor some of the equations will be necessary for every question.

Update for Week of February 3rd

No students showed up on Monday so I spent that time looking over this weeks material for Physics. On Friday, students showed up with questions form Webassign, so similar book problems were worked through.

Finally, I'm gonna have my guests.

Can anyone else feel the exam in the air? - Week 3

It would appear that the exam spirit is in the air: the total number of students attending my review sessions has doubled for this week. Wednesday I had 19, and Friday I had 21. Moreover, the classroom in Allen Hall was very nice as it accommodated everyone comfortably, had plenty of chalk and a nifty podium that folded out of the table in the front of the classroom. During both sessions, but more so Friday, we revisited the electric field, Gauss's law and potential in addition to going over capacitance and working out homework problems. Also, I gave the students several study tips for the upcoming exam. This week has been my best UTA experience hitherto, as there were newcomers in addition to the regulars, everyone was engaged and posing questions and I am very pleased to see many students taking advantage of the review sessions. I feel they should do well on Thursday's exam.

I like physics

A lot of people showed up this week because the assignment is pretty hard. I am glad I can help.

Exam Coming Up

Hey everyone,

Things are still slow with office hours - no one has really come in but I can definitely see a change in the foreseeable future with the exam coming up. However, I have helped many students with quick questions during and after lecture (mostly concept based). Other than this, everything is great.

High volumes and lots of good questions!

It still amazes me that so many of the students come to my hours on Friday--I commend them for taking such a large chunk out of their afternoon to come learn physics! I think I had somewhere near 25-30 people show up on Friday--which was astounding. The first midterm is this week, so I think everyone wanted some study tips and had some final questions. There were a few lightbulb-above-head moments of "OH! That's how that works!" which has got to be the most gratifying thing in doing all of this~

-Natalie

Crazy Week

With the T line down, I was unable to attend my Wed. hours this week.  Thankfully, for the few students who didn't get my email about not being able to come in, Annie was able to meet with them.

However, I think I have met with people individually for a longer amount of time this week than I normally hold office hours!  A few of my chem students are also in physics, and as my Tues. hours intersect with all but one of the students labs, I have been meeting 1 on 1 with them.  I am sensing either no or major amounts of anxiety regarding this upcoming exam (as the grade distribution was somewhat bimodal, this is not too surprising).

Anyhow, hopefully the weather gets better soon! (I say this knowing full well that this weekend is going to be terrible haha).

Karl

Semester Going by Quickly

Hey all,

I had my fourth UTA session yesterday, and it went pretty well. I've been getting a steady amount of 6-10 people each session for the past two weeks, so hopefully those numbers become pretty regular. Speaking of regular, I noticed some returnees yesterday from my past sessions, some of which have been to all of my sessions thus far; I try to keep them coming back by giving them helpful worksheets every session, which most definitely works. The semester is truly going by quickly though; PHYS 0110 is having their second exam next week, even though my physics course (PHYS 0174) is having its first exam next week. That's it for now; thanks for reading my post!

-Mike

Third Week------It just started.....

Because Dr. Nero postponed the due time for this week's assignment from last Friday to this Monday, there were FINALLY some students who stopped by on Monday. It was supposed to be 2 hours long, but students kept asking questions, I extended another half an hour. Apparently all of these questions were from the assignment. While answering the questions and providing the solutions, I also tried to add some more knowledge that I think would be helpful for solving the similar questions. In Tuesday's session, I saw some students who asked questions from the textbook, which should be encouraged. Practice makes Perfect.

Midterm Questions Already!

Students have had a lot of questions lately about what to expect for the midterm. I hope the professor posts a practice exam or outline soon!

Week 3

My third week was pretty uneventful... One student came in for homework help on Friday but no one else came in the past week. I can foresee an influx of students next week cause of the exam though. I guess I won't be lonely anymore!

Finally able to start posting: 1/28 & 2/4 Posts

Hey Guys: After having some problems with joining the blog here I am! It was a slow start to TA'ing the first week with having only 1 student show up but this past Tuesday that all changed! I exponentially expanded and had over 10 students. I styled the classroom setting as an open discussion so everyone could work together. We went over some exam 1 questions, chapter 4 material, and those "highly despised" recitation questions. The students were explaining to me that they do not like how those are distributed to the students and there is a lack of graduate TA help in the classrooms. However, it was not my place to judge and I encouraged this student to seek help from one of us UTAs if she had any further trouble. Overall, I was able to help all of the students who came to my recitation which was very pleasing!

Results of Last Week's Session

Hey all,

So I'm just now realizing that I have not yet posted about my session from last week, so I'll go ahead and do that now. I had a pretty good turnout last Thursday: not as many as my first week, but there was about 7-10 students that filtered in and out during the three hours. One student came in very worried because she received a D on the first exam. I realized that she had a lot of problems with vectors, and so we spent a lot of time on the general process for vectors and I gave her a couple worksheets from high school that I found helpful. When she left, she was much more confident on the subject. I also recognized some students that attended my first session as well, so hopefully I'm beginning to get some regulars attending my sessions. More to come this week after my next session on Thursday. Take care everybody.

Newton's Laws -- common questions

I had about ten visitors today for office hours, all asking questions about their current unit, Newton's Laws. Several students asked about a WebAssign question pertaining to apparent weight, but after explaining the concept to them in a conceptual way, I noticed that they were able to develop a much greater understanding. Most of the other issues were in the setup of questions, particularly free body diagrams. I always stress that writing a free body diagram is absolutely necessary, even for the simpler questions!

Last week, just before the first exam, I had my first visitor, needing help with vector problems. She seemed to understand it after a little explanation. I expect that visitors will become a little bit more regular soon.

Logan

I finally got my office and office hour!

Week 3

Hey guys,

So I had my third session this week, and due to the fact that no assignments are due soon and the students had their first exam on Thursday, I had zero visitors. Last week I had some, though, so I assume that will be more of the norm once the students have new material to cover.

Jessica

UTA Journal for the Week of January 27

I had a student come in on Friday asking about the vector problems in webassign for Physics 2. Other than that she had no problems.