Week 15

I had one student at my office hours. We just reviewed for the final and finished a few homework problems. All in all this was a great semester and I'm happy to have been able to work with the students I did. Good luck with finals, everyone!

Weeks 11-14

I have not posted for the past four weeks due to the fact that each week I had the same student come in for help. Together we went through her homework, and I answered questions she had about them. Hopefully with my help she grasped a better knowledge of the physics being taught.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Broccio Phys 0110

Week of December 4th

This week was very similar to last week, which was surprising because it is the week before finals week. I had no students come to my Tuesday hours. During my Wednesday hours, I had one student come in. He was looking for help understanding heat transfer and work done on gasses. I was able to work through a few homework problems with him and explain to him concepts such as why the work done on a gas is zero when there is no change in pressure. I then worked through the rest of the homework with him until he was able to do the rest on his own. Again, it seemed that once the students have a conceptual grasp of the material it is much easier for them to solve the problems in the homework.

Week 10-13

The number of students have diminished for office hours attendance. I haven't had a student come into office hours except once for some quick homework help these past three weeks. The majority of help I give is through email questions about the homework, with the final coming up next week I've been getting emails about the distribution of material and what to study. Overall my UTA experience this semester started off strong with around 4 students coming weekly to lackluster.

Week of Dec 5

No one came to office hours this week. A few people contacted me with questions about the new material, but that's all. Maybe more people will contact me with the final coming up on Tuesday.

Journal (Week 12/6)

Well, I really thought that the week before finals was going to be packed and I was going to be trying to help multiple people at a time, so I really prepared and laid out a brief study guide for the course, but no one showed up. Not a single person. I guess that was three hours to myself for my own studying, but I was surprised that there was not at least one person who needed some help. I guess that these last couple chapters were really straightforward mathematically and not too difficult conceptually, and by now they probably have figured out the earlier issues. I wish I could have helped someone clear something up, but the students know my email so if any help in needed further they know where to get ahold of me at. Hopefully they will all do fine.

Being a UTA for the first time was definitely an experience and I feel that it helped me as a student as well. I hope to TA again some semester in the future too. It was fun helping kids out, and it was a really good review for me for further applications. I think I was able to help a good amount of students this semester with different things and I hope that I was able to get my points across in a way that they actually understood and will not forget. Best of luck to all the kids in the class, though!

Week of 12/5

I had my usual students on Monday, and they asked about a few textbook problems regarding the new material they're learning. Most problems had to do with thermodynamics and area/volume expansion.

On Friday, there were no students.

Week of December 5th

I had one student come into my office hours this week with a question from the first unit, specifically about one dimensional motion. He had trouble working through a problem in the back of the textbook that had two unknowns. I worked through this problem with him by showing that we could solve for displacement for each variable and set those two equations equal to each other, and then solve for time as it was the same for both variables. Then with time solved we could easily retrace our steps and find each variables displacement. I told him he could take a similar approach to any problem with two unknowns, and I encouraged him to practice similar examples, but we did not have time to work through any other problems.

Broccio
TuTh 2:30-3:45

Week of Dec 5

This week in my Monday office hours I had my usual students in for questions about the homework. I was expecting more students to come in with questions before the final exam. The students had questions regarding fluids, gasses and pressures, and thermal expansion. Their homework also had a little bit of simple harmonic motion, which I explained briefly to them.

On Wednesday, I had my usual students again with homework questions, similar to those on Monday. I also received some questions from other students regarding how the final exam was set up, how to study, and how they stood in the class. Some questions I was unable to answer, but I advised the students to study conceptual concepts from the class lectures and book, as well as the homework problems from their online homework.

Week of November 28th

I had one student come in last week with a question regarding the end-of-lecture question in the buoyancy video lecture. The student had difficulty conceptualizing how to determine which equations to use when finding displaced volume, and for this particular example, I showed her that one uses the density of the medium along with the volume of the object placed in the medium. We were able to find a similar problem in the back of the textbook and work through that as well.

Broccio
TuTh 2:30-3:45

12/5-12/9

This week I had two people that needed help with speed of sound problems and I was able to answer their questions and work through their problems.

Week of December 5th

This week I have helped students study for their final exam. A few students have reached out to me via email to help them with various book problems and other conceptual questions. I have made sure to let the students in my office hours know that I am willing to meet up during finals week if any of them have questions or need help studying.

Week of December 5th

This week I had one student come to my office hours on Tuesday. We talked about torque. The student had all conceptual questions, so it was a nice change from trying to solve homework problems with the students.

6 December 2016

No students came to my office hours.

Week of Nov 28

I helped one person at office hours with general concept questions that arose from book problems. I'm curious if office hours will be busier since finals are coming up.

Week of 11/28

This week was a bit uneventful in my office hours this week. I had no students visit me during my Tuesday hours. On Thursday I had a student come in who had completed none of the homework on waves due the previous day. I went over some of the concepts of standing waves and the Doppler effect and went through all of the problems with him. He seemed to have a much greater conceptual understanding of waves and their mechanics after the homework and that was good to see. He was able to solve the homework problems much more rapidly and with less assistance once he understood what all of the equations from lecture meant and where to apply them.

Week of 11/28

This week I only had one student on Monday. Their questions were related to the Bernoulli equation. They knew the equation but they had trouble understanding what the variables meant. The best way for me to explain it was to show that the equation was describing conservation of energy. This was helpful because the student understood how the conservation of energy worked so they were able to make the connection. 

Week of 11/28-12/2

This week I had two students come in for help. Both of them needed help with thermal expansion homework problems and speed of sound problems. I was able to help both of them with their questions.

Week of November 28

This week on Monday I had students with questions about the online homework. Their questions focused on fluids, pressures and gases. I helped them understand the new equations that they received in lecture as well as basic concepts on fluid movement.

On Wednesday, I had my usual students in office hours with similar questions on fluid movement. The T/TH class had not received any equations in lecture about the homework, however, so I had to look up the equations and explain each variable to them. This helped with their understanding of the homework, although it would've been easier if they were given the equations first rather than having me looking them up online. I have also received questions regarding the final exam.

Week of November 21

This week was Thanksgiving so I had no one at my office hours this week.

Week of 11/26

No students had come by my office hours this week.

Week of 11/26

This week I had a big drop off in the amount of students that came to my office hours. The students will likely come to my office hours a lot in the next week as they will be preparing for their final. The information we are about to cover (waves) is very abstract and will be a challenge to explain to the students.

Week of 11/28

We had two students come in on Monday - one sought help with the online homework (a fluid mechanics problem) and the other had a few conceptual questions.

On Friday, I had a student who also wanted to go over fluid mechanics conceptual questions. This topic seems to be somewhat challenging in general.

Week of November 28

This week I had one girl come to my tuesday office hours. She asked about a question from the homework. Once we talked about what all the variables in the problem meant she realized that to solve the problem all you had to do was plug the given information into the given equation. I didn't have anyone come to my Thursday office hours.

29 November 2016

Two students came into my office hours this week. One of them needed help with problems involving fluid dynamics. I was easily able to help her with the homework she was having trouble with. The other came in to ask about simple harmonic motion, and I was able to steer him in the right direction to solve the problems he needed help with.

Week of 11/21

Not surprisingly, there was no one at my Monday office hours. Class was cancelled for break and there was an exam the week before.

Week of 11/14

I only had a few people at office hours this week. As usual, they were the same people that usually come to office hours and I helped them with homework. I worked with another TA there to help answer some questions, which is very helpful since we don't get to see the homework ahead of time. Different TAs have helped with different problems so we can work together.

Week 14

This week, as I sit in my empty office hours, I only helped one student. This student was struggling with a homework problem and although we struggled through it together, she eventually got the right answer. After initially getting the right answer, we then sat down and talked about how we got there. She seemed to have a good grasp on what was going on.

Journal (Week 11/29)

There was just an exam given out the Monday of Thanksgiving break so I did not expect too many people to be in office hours, and as per usual I only had two people come by and ask any questions. The girl who first came by needed help with a homework problem involving finding the distance from a light source and slit to the screen. Is was a pretty difficult problem because you had to combine two equations together that you wouldn't immediately realize would give you the variable you were looking for. It took me awhile to figure it out, but sometimes talking it out with the student actually helps you to understand everything involved as well. I am no expert on the topics being covered, but between my ideas for the problem and her ideas it was beneficial for the both of us. The other student who came in just needed a quick theory overview of constructive and destructive interference before his recitation quiz.

With finals week about to be upon us, I really think next weeks office hours will have many more students show up. The average on the last exam was higher than the previous two, and according to the professor a handful of students dropped the course after exam number two, so those still in it probably have solid study habits already, but everyone can use a refresher sometimes. Whatever happens, happens though, and I will be ready to answer any questions thrown at me to the best of my abilities. One more set of office hours left, we will see how it goes!

week 14

I had three students come to my hours this week. We worked through homework on fluid dynamics. They did not spend a long time in class on this subject, so they were quite confused. I was able to answer their questions and help them to figure out the homework problems.

week 13

I did not have office hours this week because I was not in Pittsburgh due to a funeral.

week 12

This week I had two students come to my office hours. We worked on homework problems. They had gotten most of the work done, I expect in anticipation for break. I basically only cleared up a couple of ambiguities in calculations.

week 11

This was the week of the second exam. I had one student come to my office hours for a bit of review.

Week of 11/21-11/25

I did not hold tutoring hours this past week as mine are normally on Wednesday and Thursday.

Week of 11/14

I had two students come into my office hours this week. One student had trouble with a change in linear momentum problem from the back of the textbook. The problem dealt with a ball bouncing on a flat, horizontal surface. The student had trouble visualizing changes in velocity, and I informed him that velocity in the x-direction doesn't change, whereas velocity in the y-direction has the same magnitude, but opposite signs.

Another student had a question about two objects inelastically colliding and then sliding up a ramp. I helped this student by demonstrating that an inelastic collision means the objects will hold together, so their velocity will be one and their masses will be combined. Then the problem could be thought of as a standard potential energy problem where all of the kinetic energy from the "single" object will be converted up the ramp into potential energy.

I had no students come to my office hours the week of 11/21 due to break.

Week of 11/7

I had one student come into my office hours this week. She had a question about an example from the previous week's Powerpoint slides regarding power and friction. I helped simplify the problem by pointing out that the goal of the problem is to only find the work of friction as a block slid down a ramp, and this is the component going in the same direction as the slope of the ramp. After we found the normal component of the weight of the block, she was able to apply the power equation to help her solve the problem.

Week of 11/21

On Monday, I worked with another TA to help a student with a challenging multi-step problem involving thermodynamics. I had no office hours on Friday due to the holiday.

November 24th

The number of students that saw me this week really declined. It is most likely because they did checked out before break. I really have to make sure I review the material over break so that I can be ready to answer any questions the students have before their final in a couple weeks.

Week of September 21

This week is Thanksgiving, so I only have my office hours on tuesday. Once again no one showed up this week. Most likely because everyone is home/leaving for break.

Weeks 10-12 (10/31 - 11/18)

Hey everyone,

I forgot to make a blog post for the past couple weeks but not much has changed since my last post. Unfortunately, less people are coming to office hours now. Only my regulars show up, and a couple of them actually withdrew from the class after the second exam. I think the number of withdrawals is likely the reason I am seeing less people come to office hours; it's a shame, but it was probably the right decision, at least for the couple that talked to me about it in office hours.

Aside from the bad news, the students that are still coming to office hours seem to be doing fairly well. I can see that they are starting to build up a general knowledge of physics (for example, they are becoming more likely to know how to attack a problem, or at least set it up and try some different methods out).

I'm hoping the students that do seek my help can finish out the semester strong when we come back from Thanksgiving break.

-Mike

Week of November 14

This week I had a couple of students on Monday with questions before their exam. I answered mostly conceptual questions they had and clarified equations.

On Wednesday I only had one of my usual students and listened to feedback about the exam. I helped the students on their online homework questions about springs and starting simple harmonic motion. After working through some problems, they seemed to grasp the concepts better.

Week of November 14th

I had one student come in on Friday. They had one homework question which was related to torque. The student had some difficulty understanding that the force must be applied perpendicular to the object. Another important point was choosing the pivot point given which information was provided. However, the student was able to write the sum of the equations once we got through these problems. 

Week of November 14th

This week was another typical week during my office hours. No students ended up coming to my Tuesday office hours. During my Thursday hours however, a few students came in during the two hour session. Most of the students came in for help on their concept quiz. This was not too surprising since the topic was waves and the concepts can be rather abstract and unintuitive. I was able to help them by putting the concepts into terms that were a bit more simple than the lecture notes. This seemed to allow them to complete the concept quiz on their own and gave them a bit more of an understanding of wave mechanics.

Week of 11/14

I had one student come to my office hours this week. She needed help with a problem that relied on the law of conservation of angular momentum. She was able to solve her homework problem once she knew to use that law.

Journal (Week 11/15)

This week, like the past couple, there was only one student who dropped by for help. He needed a quick refresher on ray diagrams for both lenses and mirrors, and to talk about the theory behind Snell's Law before his recitation quiz. It was a good session and I think he ultimately walked away with a solid grasp on the concepts. I was surprised by the lack of students who came though because typically before an exam there at least 3-5 people who come talk about things. The topics covered on this exam are a bit easier than the past couple though so we will chalk it up to that for the lack of students in the past weeks.

I have let the students know that my hours will be canceled this coming week since I will be headed home for Thanksgiving, but I assume that since they have an exam on Monday and no one has come in the past weeks that I will not be missed too much. But, like I told them, I am always checking my emails so if something really needs to be clarified then they can always reach me that way. For now, it is time for a much needed break.

Week of 11/14

I helped 3-4 students on Monday, who all were looking to review concepts before their exam. The problems we looked at covered many topics, but many had trouble with rotational kinematics.

On Friday, no students came.

Week of 11/14-11/18

This past week I had a couple of people come in with questions about pressure. I was able to help most of them out by manipulating and re-arranging equations however there was a problem where an aluminum can went from sea level to under the sea and I could not figure it out. I thought that it might have something to do with overcoming the buoyant force but I never did figure it out. The rest of the problems that students needed help with, I was able to walk them through and explain the concepts behind getting the correct answers.

November 17th

This past week students were preparing for their exams so I was understandably very busy. The material that the students learned in this unit was, in my opinion, the most difficult in the course. I had to prepare extra hard to make sure I could fully explain the concepts to the students

Week of 11/14

This week I only had my tuesday office hours, and no one came.

Week of 11/7-11/11

During this week I helped students out with problems relating to conservation of momentum, spring constants, conservation of energy, and torque. I was able to assist the students on the conservation of energy and conservation of momentum problems with relative ease however there was a spring problem dealing with simple harmonic motion that I had a bit of trouble with. For the most part, the students that came in had trouble getting started but could then work through a problem once they were using the correct concept.

Week of Nov 7

Barely anyone came to office hours this week. Two people came Friday for homework help but no one else besides that. I also helped a few people over the weekend right before the exam. Also, sorry this is late.

15 November 2016

No students came to my office hours today.

Week of 11/7

I had no students come to my office hours this week.

Week of November 7

This week I had two students in my Monday office hours who had questions on the difficult book problems. Most of them were conceptual questions and after explaining them, the students seemed to understand them better. They dealt with center of gravity and rotation mostly.

On Wednesday I had my usual students plus two new students with questions on the online homework problems. The problems are getting more difficult now and the students seem to have a lot more confusion on them. Looking back on when I took Physics 1, I struggled with rotational movement a lot. After explaining relationships between linear and angular movement, it seemed to clear some questions up. I wish them luck on their exams this week!

Week of November 7th

This week was very quiet in my office hours. I had one student come into my Tuesday office hours, mainly to get some conceptual help with rotational momentum and rolling to complete the homework due the next day. My Thursday office hours consisted of a few students coming in who just wanted to try the next homework on their own and ask questions if they ran into trouble. The next homework was on simple harmonic motion, so I ended up explaining a few things about the analysis of sinusoidal motion and how it relates to springs. For the most part, the students seemed to pick up simple harmonic motion pretty quickly and were able to do the following weeks homework with relative ease.

Week of 11/7

This week I had one student on Thursday and one on Friday. On Thursday, I helped the student with check your understanding questions about moment of inertia and rotational vs. linear movement. It was important to discuss how to switch between angular and linear acceleration. One of the best ways to do this was to use the equations. On Friday, the questions were about homework. The questions were largely related to torque. It was important to explain how to balance the forces based on where they chose to place the fulcrum. Another concept that I had to explain was that for torque the force that is perpendicular to the lever arm must be used. It was also easier to explain torque by drawing a free body diagram. 

Journal (Week 11/8)

This week they are continuing to learn optics, which is personally my favorite topic of the course. As per usual, I only had a couple students stop in for help, all of which wanted to go over ray diagrams. These diagrams are pretty straight forward and I think they are one of those things where at first you have no clue what is going on and it looks like black magic, but then once someone really sits down with you and shows you how they work it just clicks. I know that is how they were for me, and it appeared to be the same case for these students as well. I gave them some tips, made a list of steps on how to approach such problems, and directed them to the text book for a really well organized table that describes each scenario that could possibly happen.

My only issue is with the pre-lab quiz that one student came in with. The quiz grouped mirrors and lenses together, and used the terms interchangeably, but this is not correct at all. Mirrors and lenses behave quite differently and I think this student's main issue was trying to figure out which one they actually wanted him to use. Besides that single question, though, I think everyone left with a better grasp of the optics thus far. I really do enjoy this section of the semester so I am hoping more people come in and ask for help.

Week of 11/7

I helped no students this week, which was surprising since their next exam is on Monday/Tuesday. I anticipate more people next Monday.

8 November 2016

No students came to my office hours this week.

Week of 10/31

This week the students worked with rotational kinematics and torque. This is my strongest concept in physics 1 so I easily helped the students who came into my office hours. On Friday I stayed an extra hour or so because a student was really struggling until I fully explained all the concepts to her.

Week 10

This week a lot of students showed up to office hours as their homework proved to be challenging even for me. Most of the time was spent doing this homework.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Broccio Phys 0110

Week 9

This week only 1 student showed up. This was normal as the students had just had an exam. Questions involved clearing up concepts on class material.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Broccio Phys 0110

Week 8

This week I had 4 students come to office hours. We mainly talked about homework problems as the students had an exam coming up.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Broccio Phys 0110

Week of November 7th

This week I had one girl come to my office hours. We worked on some of the extra homework problems from the book. She seemed to know what she was doing, but just had some problems with torque. Specifically, her problem was finding the perpendicular distance.

Week of 10/31-11/4

This past week was some of the toughest homework I have ever come across for a physics 1 class. Many of the UTAs, including myself, had trouble with the homework for the MWF flipped class. The most missed problems were the ones dealing with a ladder contacting the floor and a wall at an angle, as well as a few spring problems. For the spring problems, conservation of energy was not working and therefore many of the UTAs were getting stuck. However I was able to help with the TuesThurs homework with relative ease, using concepts of torque, inertia, and angular acceleration to solve for problems.

Recently

The past few weeks I have been helping one student in particular who faithfully attends the office hours. We've also met outside of that time to work on things prior to her exam.

Week of 10/31

Not many people came to office hours this week.  Most people came on Friday for homework help. The homework this week seemed pretty hard and everyone was having problems with it. Students are nervous about the exam

Week of 10/31/16

Last week I had a few people come in with questions about the homework. A few of the questions were quite difficult and I left my office hours without them having finished their homework. The students stayed for the next set of hours so I think they ended up getting the help they seeked out. For the most part the students seemed to understand how to utilize equations, the questions were just very ambiguously worded.

Week of 10/31

This week I only had one student on Friday. She had questions on the homework. It seems like students still do not have good understanding of momentum and impulse. The student had problems understanding the idea of conservation of momentum. One way that I explained it was to say that it was similar to the idea of conservation of energy. This was also helpful because we were able to discuss the differences between inelastic and elastic collisions. In addition, the moment of inertia was a concept that I had difficulty explaining in a conceptual manner. The fact that there are different equations for different shapes confused the student. 

Week of 10/31

I had no one come to my office hours this week though I did help a student outside of my office hours. She needed help with a torque equilibrium problem, mainly how to set it up and why.

Week of October 31st

This week was pretty normal in my office hours. During my Tuesday office hours no students came. On Thursday I had a few students come in and ask me about a certain problem involving two lady bugs and a stick that was particularly challenging. This problem explored the ideas of equilibrium torques and summing different moments of inertia. I think the students ran into the most trouble in their raw calculations of this problem. Since there was a lot of math involved, it was easy for them to miss a negative somewhere or something of that nature so their answer was incorrect. To combat this, I was able to supervise the calculations of each student to double check them while they went through the problem. The students who visited my office hour on Thursday seemed to conceptually grasp rotational motion, but they would benefit from a few more practice problems.

Journal (Week 11/1)

This week in my office hours I only had a single student come in for help. She needed help with a homework problem that her physics tutor could not seem to get correct. It dealt with the doppler effect and I must admit, I got it wrong the first couple times as well. It turned out to be one of those problems that is way easier than you previous thought, and just by reading the problem with a little more detail allowed us to finally figure out the issue. Note to self: radar guns use two distance, so divide your answer by two! What matters is that we figured it out and she left with a better understanding of how to go about doing a problem of that sort, which is 99.9% likely to be on the upcoming exam.

They are starting to learn about mirrors and vision now, which I personally find the most interesting, so hopefully some more students will come visit me in office hours in these next couple chapters. I think the information is relatively straightforward though, so perhaps they won't need my help. Like always, we will see come next Tuesday.

Week of 10/31

I had a regular student come in on Monday, and I worked together with another TA to help her understand some book problems (since no one else was there).

On Friday, no students came in.

Week 10

This week I had the same student as I did last week. We worked on more conservation of energy and some applications of this. We also worked through some homework problems that he had trouble with and I was able to help clear up some confusion. He has a good grasp on the concepts but sometimes gets stuck on the actual algebra or calculations.

Week of Oct 31

On Monday I had no students in my office hours. On Wednesday, I had my usual students come in with questions about angular motion and torque. I showed them how linear and angular movement were similar and pulled up a comparison on the kinematics equations vs. angular equations. This helped them understand that both concepts were very similar, its just that angular velocity has different variables. I also helped them on their questions about torque as this was just introduced to them the day before. At the end of my office hours, they seemed to understand all of the concepts better and finished their homework for the week.

Week 6-9

Week 6

No students came this week, it was the week after the exam so I'm guessing many did not have physics on their mind.

Week 7

One student came in. Her foundation was pretty strong and unlike previous students who just came in for homework help, she came in for help with the more difficult textbook problems. After helping her with those I feel as a student she will perform quite strongly in the next exam.

Week 8

No one came to office hours this week as well, I am curious if my office hours are at a bad time, since the other UTA is also only averaging 1-2 students a week.

Week 9

I couldn't hold my wednesday office hours due to an interview, however a student emailed me for help and I met up with him in the library to help with homework problems.

Week of October 31

This week I had three girls stop by my office hours at different times all asking the same questions. They were working on the homework due this week and were having problems understanding the torque equation. It was mostly the perpendicular distance part that was throwing people off. There were also some problems with angular momentum and understanding how changes in the radius can change the angular momentum.

Week of November 24th

I had no students come to my office hours this week.

Broccio
TuTh 2:30-3:45PM

Weeks 6-9 (10/3 - 10/28)

Hey everyone,

Apparently I just forgot about the blog for the entire month of October (oops!) but I'll try to sum it all up here:

Following exam one, I began to see a large increase in students coming to my hours once the new material for the second exam began to get more challenging. I think this is typical for most UTA's, and this is just because there are students who thought they had prepared enough for the exam, but were unpleasantly surprised at their inability to apply physics to new problems they have not yet seen. This is why physics is often a tough subject for people; anyone can understand a given problem if they work on it long enough, but the real key is being able to solve problems using your overall knowledge of physics. I think most students become a deer in the headlights at this moment, so we need to better prepare them for this by helping them develop a system to solve problems that can be applied to any problem they encounter, whether it be on an exam or in their recitation.

Another problem I continue to see with students is that they don't want to draw a picture of the problem or write down the initial information provided in the problem. Instead, they attempt to solve the problem in their head as best they can, which is a terrible strategy. Yes, they can often get the right answer to part or even all of the problem, but they are not actually practicing their problem solving skills this way, which is what physics is all about. I think we need to continue to stress the importance of drawing a diagram and writing out their work, and hopefully it will eventually stick with them.

Finally, I've noticed that a good amount of the students that regularly come to my hours actually performed better on the second exam than they did on the first, even though the average for the class was lower. This is a sign that we do have a positive impact on the student's learning experience, and that we shouldn't give up on any student willing to seek out our help.

Keep up the good work everyone!
-Mike

1 November 2016

No students came to my office hours today.

Week of 10/24

I had no students attend my office hours

Week of October 24th

This week was the first week that the students did not receive extra credit incentive to come to my office hours, so naturally attendance was lower than it has been in the past. No students showed up for my Tuesday office hours, but that was as expected one day after an exam. My Thursday office hours consisted of a few students coming in to get some help with the concept quiz due that night on rotational motion. I helped them go through the multiple choice problems by going through each choice and reasoning with them why it was either the right or wrong answer. I also put a stress on keeping track of units and how when doing rotational problems because otherwise it is easy to become confused. This seemed to really help a few of the students through the concept quiz.

Week of 10/24

No one came to my office hours this week. maybe they are taking a break since they just had an exam? or maybe they had other exams -- I'm not really sure.

week of 10/24

Last week the students had their exam so I was not surprised when I had only a few students show up to my office hours. Last Friday Professor Broccio held a meeting with the UTA's where we talked about the trends of when students show up. The other UTA's have witnessed the same trends I have.

Week of 10/24-10/28

I did not have many students come in because all of my office hours were held after their test(s) on Monday or Tuesday. However I was able to help a few students with kinetic energy problems as well as rotational kinematics problems. I am starting to see many of the same students every week and I am trying to help them out less and less and pushing them towards working independently. Many of these students are asking for reaffirmation and help with every step of every problem. I am going to consciously try to help them only when they are absolutely stuck with a problem, otherwise just guide them along.

Week of 24th

I did not have too many people at office hours this week. All of the questions were about the new material. People had trouble understanding the difference between impulse and momentum. This was difficult to explain because rhis was new material that students had not had time to understand the material. The easiest way for me to explain the concepts was to start with F=ma and derive the equations. This is not the best way to provide a good understanding of the concept but this is a good place to start. I think one way to help students is to provide real life examples of impulse like a ball hitting a baseball bat.

Week of 10/24

This week, I helped one student on Monday for about ten minutes. She seemed to already have a firm grasp of the concepts and only needed some help with algebra.

No other students came in on Monday or Friday.

Week of Oct 24

This week I only had one office this week due to a conflict with my schedule on Wednesday. On Monday I only had one student come to my office hour before her exam on Tuesday. She mostly had conceptual questions about elevators, friction and circular motion. After clarifying her questions and using free-body diagrams to show her, she understood the concepts better. I expected more students to show up before the exam, but hopefully this meant that they understood the material well enough not to have questions before their exam.

Week of October 24

This week I only had one girl come to my office hours. This is probably because they just had an exam on monday. I was asked a question about momentum and impulse. When I was trying to help the girl I realized that her problem was not that she didn't understand momentum concepts, but that she still was having problems adding vectors. She was having problems because she still hadn't mastered the material from the first unit of the class.

week of 10/17

This was a very busy week as students were preparing vigorously for their exam. I had to stay late a couple times this week, but I didn't mind and the students really appreciated it. I assume next week will be much slower due to the absence of an exam.

Journal (Week 10/25)

Being that the exam is tomorrow, and I did not have any hours last week, I figured that this week's office hours would have been pack with students. It was the exact opposite though. I had one student who needed a quick explanation of magnetic flux and to make sure that he had his unit conversions correct. It was a simple day to say the least. I am not sure why no one came, mainly because I feel that a good deal of this information is pretty confusing concepts. I guess that is just conceptually, though. Mathematically it is pretty straight forward, so as long as they can get that down, which is primarily what the professor tests on, then it should go well for them.

I personally think that the next couple chapters get easier so we will see if the amount of people coming to my office hours changes at all, or if they think it is also easier and do not need any help from a boring old UTA like myself. We shall find out.

Week of 10/17-10/21

This week I worked with many students on centripetal force, work, and power problems. Most were able to understand concepts for all of these when we were able to talk through them and work out practice problems together. The toughest question I received was regarding a homework tug of war question in which the total force of the team pushing against the ground was used to find the tension in the rope.

Week 9

This week I had a new student come to my office hours. We worked on homework problems and conservation of energy. We just went through some of the basics of energy and work and then applied that to the homework problems. The student had most of his homework done or at least attempted so it was pretty easy to go through the problems and just clarify a couple of things so that he could answer the problems.

25 October 2016

This week, I only had one student stop by at my office needing help with their momentum homework problems. What I've been noticing is that a lot of students come into office hours expecting me to pretty much do the problems for them, and today the student basically came in with none of their homework done, sat for an hour and a half, and did them there (wanting me to go through them). She didn't bring any previous work for the problems, so it proved difficult to help her discover the solutions solely by herself. Most of the time, this isn't an issue, but it becomes a burden to try and help a student who comes in with the idea that I'm just going to gives them the answers to their homework.

Week 8

This week I had one student come to office hours. This is the same student who always comes to my hours. We worked on homework and did a couple of practice problems on rotational motion.

Week 7

I didn't have anyone come to office hours this week, most likely due to the fact that they just had a test and didn't have questions on the new material yet.

Week of Oct 17

I helped 2 people in office hours this week. I'm surprised there weren't more people since I think the information is getting harder and there is an exam on Monday.

Week of 10/17/16

I only had 2 office hours last week because of Fall break. On both days the usual students showed up to ask questions about homework and a few people came in with book problems in preparation for the exam. We all had some problems with the homework problems but I was able to help with the textbook problems which helped everybody prepare for the exam.

Week of 10/17

I had one student come in during my office hours. She needed help with a vertical loop problem. It was important to reiterate how the normal force changes thoughout.

Week of 10/17

This week I only had sessions on Thursday and Friday. Thursday I had one person. Friday I had 5 people. One of the things I noticed that students were memorizing equations from the FBD for the slope and using these equations for a flat surface or for circular motion. The best way to get around this was to draw out the fbd's for the other scenarios and explain how to derive equations for applied forces or gravity. In addition, students had some understanding that the sum of the forces for uniform circular motion was (mv2/r). It was also important to explain that this was simply and extension to F=ma. 

Week of October 17th

This week was similar to the last week right before an exam in my office hours. My Tuesday hours consisted of helping students finish the last bit of homework they needed to do before the exam, and helping to build a better conceptual understanding of the relationship between energy and momentum. My Thursday office hours were all about helping students with the practice exam that Dr. Nero provide. I went through every problem on the exam multiple times, as each wave of students that came to my office hours had similar problems solving each question. I then gave the students my recommendation on what to put on their equation sheets, and told themwhat to expect in terms of difficulty for the upcoming exam.

Week of 10/17

On Monday, I helped one student who was working on book problems and asked for help only when she could not get it herself on the first or second try. The problems she had more difficulty with often had circular motion involved.

On Friday, one student came to my office hour, also asking for help with the recommended book problems. The problem we worked on dealt with the work-energy theorem.

The lack of students surprised me, since their exam is on Monday/Tuesday.

Week of October 17

This week, since there was no Tuesday, I only had 1 hour of my office hours. No body showed up. There usually aren't any students that come on Thursday mornings.

Week 7

This week I had 2 students come to me during office hours. They had questions concerning ideas expressed in class. That dealt with centripetal force and work.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Broccio Phys 0110

Week 6

I had 3 students this week in office hours. 90% of what we went over was the homework problems as many students seemed to have trouble with this weeks homework. This homework included topics such as friction, normal force, and tension.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Broccio Phys 0110

Week of Oct 18

On Tuesday I only had one student in office hours; we went over force and tension book problems. She pretty much didn't need any of my assistance, just asking occasional questions about the set up of her problems or her free-body diagrams. She grasped the concepts well and could pretty much do most of the problems on her own. 

On Wednesday I had my usual students during my office hours. I helped them with problems on momentum and energy, helping them understand the concepts of energy conservation and impulse. I helped them on their online homework problems along with another TA. The other TA focused on the T/TH homework set while I focused on the M/W/F homework set. Overall, the students were starting to understand energy, momentum, nonconservative forces and impulse questions better after drawing diagrams and further explanation. I wish them luck on their next exam next week! 

18 October 2016

All of my hours are on Tuesday, so I had none this week.

Week 7

There weren't many people in office hours this week, maybe because of Fall Break. I did help 2 students. They were confused about some concepts with circular motion. I think office hours will be busier this week with the next exam on Monday.

Journal (Week 10/18)

Because of the Fall "break" schedule, I will not be holding office hours this week. I did, however, mention to the class that if they need any help with anything that they can always email me and I will do my best to assist them in that manner.

Next week is their second exam so I am sure there will be plenty of people coming in to my office hours then, and plenty more to write in this journal about.

Week of 10/10

Last week was a slow week. I had a few people come in with homework problems and one girl came in with some book problems. The homework problems were pretty simple and the people who asked about it seemed to just need help with problem solving skills when looking at force problems. The book problems were a little more difficult and involved forces that went across several different axises, and I had to work together with the girl who came in to come up with a solution. All in all I think everybody left with a better understanding of force diagrams.

Week of 10/10

This week in office hours, I didn't have as many people come to my office as usual. The same students who show up every week were there but no one new. In class, the students just learned about work and energy, which is confusing at first, but I helped the students to understand it better.

Week of 10/10

Several students came in for assistance with homework. They needed help applying the concepts of work and energy to solve problems. The difference between conservative and non-conservative forces  had to be emphasized.

Week of 10/10

I had one student come to my office hours this week. Her question came from a homework problem dealing with centripetal force. She had a very good initial idea about how to start the problem, but was confused about the direction of forces acting on an object, and thus struggled to draw the free body diagram. Once I worked through the correct free body diagram with her, she was able to solve the problem and finish her homework.

Joe Musiol
Broccio TuTh 2:30-3:45

Week of 10/10

I was not able to conduct my office hours Thursday, and Monday I only had one student with a single homework question. On Friday, I had a few students who had question about homework. I had a few questions about forces but a lot of the focus was on circular motion. A lot of the questions were concept questions relating to acceleration and velocity. The best way to explain this concept is to draw the vectors of acceleration and velocity on a circle and determine how they during circular motion. This also helps explain in what cases an object is speeding up or slowing down. Students seem to be getting better at setting up the sum of the forces equations which has helped them solve more complicated force problems. 

Week of October 10th

This week was a bit unusual during my office hours. I actually had no students show up to my Tuesday office hours, which is strange because Dr. Nero sets the weekly homework due on Wednesday. My Thursday office hours were much different. Students came in with two main issues, they needed help with a problem on the homework involving a roller coaster, and help with conceptually understanding work. Conveniently, helping the students understand work and how conservative forces interact in a system seemed to really help them solve the roller coaster problem that everyone had so much trouble with. Once the students understood that when only conservative forces act on a system the total energy doesn't change, they were able to do the roller coaster problem with relative ease.

Week of 10/10

On Monday I had two students who came into my office hours; one student was working on tension problems and was getting confused drawing the free body diagrams. We worked through a couple of the hard book problems and were able to get the correct answers with the help of another TA.

On Wednesday, I had my usual students and we worked on the online homework problems. I had the students in the T/TH class and the other TA had the M/W/F problems, since the homework differed. I introduced my students to the concepts of centripetal force and angular velocity, as well as friction in a circular motion. Since they didn't really cover this in lecture, I was able to give them some equations to use on their homework, and they both were able to do the problems on their own.

Week of 10/10

On Monday, I worked solely with one student on homework that was already due. She struggled with parts of almost every problem, so I worked on the basics of drawing free-body diagrams and setting up a system of equations with net force. By the end of my office hours, she was almost to the point of being able to solve problems by herself.

No students came to my office hours on Friday.

Week of October 10th

This week I have one girl come to my Tuesday office hours and three girls come on Thursday. The one girl just wanted clarification on the problem from recitation. The other girls came to get homework help. The biggest problem is always drawing the force diagrams and setting up force equations on ramp problems.

11 October 2016

No students came to my office hours this week.

Journal (Week 10-11)

I am starting to see some familiar faces in my office hours. I only had two students come in for help this week and both of them happened to need help with the same questions, so it worked out well. It is always nice when someone has an issue that someone else had earlier because I have already talked someone else through it, so now on the second time around I know how to even better explain the topic.

I have noticed that the students have typically already answered the questions correctly, but are unsure why the answer they put was correct to begin with. I guess it is a good thing in a way though. I find it easier to show them why using the equation they did, or why applying the rule that they chose, was the correct method to work with. I think that when it is in that situation, they already have a basic understanding of the topic at hand, and then with my explanation they connect everything together and they understand it completely.

Just like in past weeks, it is the little things that they seem to be missing, and as soon as you point it out to them they become pros at the concept. They have an exam coming up in two weeks so I am sure office hours will get a little busier in the coming weeks, but we shall see. The exam average for the last test was not all that high so I suspect there to be more students this time around than last.

Week of October 3rd

This week was all about homework at my office hours. Tuesday was very typical, many students came in looking for help with the tricky problems on their homework involving rotational motion and tension. I went over some concepts of rotational motion and systems of equations, and helped the students get on the right track for their homework problems. Thursday this week was a bit unusual. This week there were a lot of students who had not finished the homework who came in seeking help completing it even after it was due. Because of this, my Thursday office hours were very similar to my Tuesday hours. I helped the students to understand the basic concepts of the section, and then set them on the right track to solve the problems they need help with.

Week 6

This week my class had their first test. I mostly answered questions before or after class or via email. I actually did not have any students come for help which surprised me, but I assume it was because they were studying.

Week 6

My office hours were busy on Friday. My office hours get much busier as the week goes on because the homework is due over the weekend. In class, not as many students raise their hand for help as I would imagine. The material is becoming more challenging and I am finding that I'm having to refresh my memory before class and office hours.

Week of 10/03/16

Last week I had several students come in with homework problems on both Monday and Wednesday. Most of the students seemed to grasp the general concepts, they were just having difficulty interpreting what the questions were asking for for the most part. I worked with the other UTAs to help these students figure out the methods for solving the problems.

Week of 10/2

This week I had one student on Monday and one on Thursday. On Friday I had around five people. The questions are still mostly about homework. They are mostly about forces. People understand what forces are with regards to gravity and normal force, but they still have trouble solving problems. The best way for me to help students is to tell them to practice free body diagrams for different scenarios. This is the best place to start, but it also takes practice to get good at setting these up. Once that is completed, writing the sum of the forces is the next step. I have told students to do these two steps to solve problems and I think it has helped in office hours. I have not had as many concept questions, but as the test approaches students will most likely ask more of these questions. 

Week 6

this week I had one student stop by. She needed some help with homework problems dealing with forces. I found it important to explain how forces like tension and friction come about.

Week of 10/3

On Monday, I helped three or four different students for 90 minutes non-stop. Questions varied, from conceptual questions (pertaining to the extra credit lab assignments) to homework problems. Most students are still trying to wrap their heads around how certain forces affect the system, and drawing free body diagrams seem to be best for helping them see what forces cancel out and how forces affect one another.

On Friday I had similar experiences with two more students. Mass on an incline questions were also a common type of problem that students had difficulty with.

4 October 2016

This week, I had two students come into my office hours. Both of them were having trouble with problems involving force: how to set up diagrams, how to derive equations from them, and how to use the equations to solve for acceleration, or tension, or whatever was specific to a given problem. One of the students was having particular trouble with problems involving blocks on ramps, so I gave her a mini-lesson showing her the basics of these types of problems. All in all, everyone seems to have a good grasp of the material. I've yet to have a student from my section come to my office hours, however.

Week of 10/3

Many of these students did pretty well with forces and had a fairly good grasp on them. There were however a few very difficult homework questions that even I was struggling with. I think that some of these homework questions might be unrealistic in a 50 minute setting but nonetheless are great practice.

Week 6

There weren't many people in office hours this week. I helped only 2 or 3 over 3 days and they were mostly the same people who always come. I continue to tutor one student outside office hours for extra help.

Week of Oct 3

This week I had a lot of people at my office hours. On Monday, I had a lot of questions on the homework, mostly dealing with material not covered in lecture yet. I explained how to do tension problems, where the tension is the same. In a stationary system, the vector components in the x and y directions of the tension forces are equal to each other. We also reviewed the basics of force.

On Wednesday, another TA and I helped students on the online homework. I showed the students how to draw the free-body diagram of an object on an inclined plane, and many of them found this very useful because it has not been covered in lecture yet. I also explained the differences between static and kinetic friction, and in what scenarios to use which value. These explanations helped them on their homework. It was a very successful week in office hours.

Week of October 3rd

This week I didn't have any students come to my office hours. During class I had a few students ask me questions about the problems that were up on the board. Most of them were related to forces, and when there should be a net force of zero and when there shouldn't be. Another point of confusion was with centripetal acceleration and how there can be a net force, but a constant speed with a changing direction.

Weeks of 9/19 and 9/26

Week of 9/19

I had two students come into my office hours this week. My first student had questions from the Exam 1 recommended book problems. He had trouble drawing vectors and finding their components in order to find a resultant vector. I walked him through head-to-tail addition and showed him how to use trigonometry to find all of the x-components and y-components separately. This was slightly concerning as this was a topic we had covered the second week of class, and lecture material had since moved on to motion with constant velocity and acceleration. He was able to work through a few similar problems under my supervision, and I noted a few more problems in the book he could do on his own as practice.

Another student came with a question about that week’s homework set, specifically about a problem concerned with free fall. She had just come from Dr. Broccio’s office hours, so she had a pretty good understanding of the homework and which equations to use, however she was having trouble finding the correct answer. I checked her work and found that her direction was incorrect, and told her that a objecting falling will fall in the negative y-direction, and therefore will have a negative value. I reminded her to keep track of positive and negative direction and this seemed to help her complete the rest of the homework.

Week of 9/26

I had one student visit my office hours the day of his first exam. He had a question about a problem that was worked out during lecture. The problem dealt with projectile motion and combining two equations in order to find time of flight. I worked through this problem with him and made sure to point out that the x and y-components of motion are independent of each other, and this helped him tremendously in conceptually understanding the problem. And then in order to combine two equations, I worked through solving both equations for one variable, and then setting those two equations equal to each other. He was also confused about when to apply the projectile motion equations, so we discussed the specific conditions under which those equations would be applicable.

Joe Musiol

Broccio TuTh 2:30-3:45

Weeks 4-5

Last week I saw the a new pair of students during my wednesday office hours, the mainly had issues drawing for diagrams and setting up equations based off the diagram. After an hour both students seemed to grasp the concept a lot better and could do problems on their own. It's week 5 and I haven't had a visit to office hours which is odd due to it being the week of the first exam. Mainly i've had emails of just basic questions about the format or rules of their alloted equation sheet. I have had 1-2 students come up to me in the library for quick help outside of my office hours. Once the exams are graded I am curious to see how the class is doing as a whole.

Week 4 (9/26 - 9/30)

Last week went pretty well, but not nearly as many people showed up as they have in previous weeks. I believe this is because their class (Physics 1 w/ Broccio MWF) had their first exam on Monday, and it's likely the students also had other exams that week to study for.

The biggest takeaway from last week, however, is the few returnees who did show up. These are mostly students that didn't do well on the last exam because they thought they were prepared but instead were surprised. I'm glad they aren't giving up hope, and hopefully now they realize how much commitment it will take from them to learn physics properly. My advice to any UTA who has a new student come to their hours is to ask them how they did on their last test. If they did poorly, ask them if they have a plan for how to do better next time, and if they don't, help them make one based on what you did when you were in physics.

Journal (Week 10/4)

I had one person stop into my office hours this week. They are now learning Chapter 20, which is dealing with circuits, and that information is pretty straightforward so I don't think many students needed help with it. The one student that did stop in was asking more about notes that confused him. It turns out that there was a minor slip up in equation derivation, but we got it sorted out and I am going to bring it to the professors attention next lecture. 

No one showed up for the other UTA's office hours either, so I could not chime in on physics 0110 this week. It was a pretty slow Tuesday afternoon to say the least. The information is about to pick back up in difficulty though, so come next week I am sure there will be a bigger turn out of students to office hours. Until then, I will keep up to speed on their lectures and preparing for Tuesday of next week, which is already the second week in October! Crazy!

Week of 9/26

Monday was somewhat busy with two or three students asking for help, but I anticipated many more since they had their exam on Tuesday. Questions were primarily conceptual, and a few students were still confused about sign notation and direction.

No one came in for help on Friday.

Week 5

Only 1 student came to my office hours this week. This wasn't unusual as the students had an exam the prior week. We went over some homework problems that needed to be addressed.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Broccio Phys 0110

Week 5

The students had their exam on Monday of this week. That being said, my office hours were very busy on Monday, but almost no one showed up to my office hours later in the week. I make sure to do the homework every week because students only come to me with questions about the homework.