Week 7

No students showed up to office hours this week. I expect this to change next week and the week after as there is an exam coming up. Lack of attendance shows, to me, that the concepts and examples presented in class by Dr. Busche are presented in clear manner, reducing office hour traffic.

Nick Pelosi
Phys 0110 Dr. Busche

Weeks 5 and 6

No one came to office hours this week, although I had a few students email me with questions.  The material currently being covered is somewhat easier than previous material which is probably why no one came this week.  Last thursday, there was an exam that covered electric potential, capacitance, and some simple circuits.

Weeks of Feb. 15th & 22nd

I had two students come to my office hours on Wednesday the week of February 15th. One student was struggling with centripetal force, particularly with the recitation exercise for the week and one of the homework problems. When relating tension and centripetal force, it seemed especially useful to break down the problem into X and Y components and solving the problems using two equations with two unknown variables. The other student came in with a few questions about that week's homework. She needed a little clarity conceptualizing work, and while working through the homework problems, I stressed that only the component of force in the same direction of displacement is actually accounted for in the actual equation. This seemed particularly useful in helping her solve the homework problems.

Last week, I had one student come in on Monday. She had a few questions regarding the PEC for that week, and she has come in a few times before with questions about prior PEC's. We walked through the problems, mainly about the conservation of mechanical energy, and it was useful to note to her the differences between conservative and nonconservative forces, and the complete conversion of potential to kinetic energy in the absence of nonconservative forces. Another student came in on Friday with questions about the homework dealing with applying the work-energy theorem.

Broccio
MWF 1:00-1:50

Week of Feb 22

I had a total of 8 students come into my office hours throughout the week, with the heaviest traffic (5 students) on Friday.  Most students came in with homework questions, or were looking for some clarification regarding the PEC extra credit lab. Friday was an especially productive day, as some of the students were able to help each other with homework problems, so that I had more time to spend with the students who needed a bit more help from a conceptual standpoint.  I am planning on holding an extra review session on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week in preparation for the upcoming Friday exam.

Week 6-7

During the past two weeks I have had 2 students in office hours and both weeks they were the same students. It is interesting that the students seeking help in office hours are actually ones that understand the material but students who are struggling haven't come to seek help (at least in my office hours). Regardless, I helped the students to grasp a few circular motion concepts and suggested watching some Khan Academy videos if they were looking for any additional help in mastering the material. Overall, a good two weeks of office hours.

Week of February 22

I did not hold office hours this week due to a family emergency, which caused me to have to leave Pittsburgh and spend the week at home. However, I have been communicating with a student by e-mail about some homework questions, which has been helpful to her. They are all about uniform circular motion and work due to frictional and applied forces.

Danielle Newman
MWF 1:00pm-1:50pm Broccio

Week of February 15

No one came to my office hours this week. I held two extra hours on Monday to make up for ones I missed the week before due to travel.

Danielle Newman

MWF 1:00-1:50 Broccio

Week 7

One person from one of the calculus based classes came in for help before a quiz. We just reviewed some problems on motion and friction.

Week 7

No one attended my Tuesday or Wednesday sessions this week.

Corey Williams
PHYS 0111 (Lynch)

Week 6

Tom Reynolds
Physics 175
Dr. Paolone MWF 11

No one came this week.  Next week there is the second exam so maybe someone will come with some last minute questions or study tips.  The exam is on electric potential, capacitors and some circuits.

Week 6

On Tuesday, no one came to my office hours.

On Wednesday, there was a 110 student with a question regarding the angle below horizontal of a ball rotating on a string. He set the problem up correctly, but he was not able to do the algebra. I showed him a trick for dealing with inverse trig functions inside of other trig functions. Using the values inside the inverse trig function, it is possible to create a right triangle and solve the unknown values with the pythagorean theorem. This link shows the process at the bottom: http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algtrig/att8/inversetrig2.htm

Corey Williams
PHYS 0111 (Lynch)

Week 6

Unfortunately, no students came to my office hours this past week. Hopefully this means the concepts are being clearly taught by Dr. Busche.

Nick Pelosi
Phys 0110 Dr. Busche

Week 6

Bhupinder Singh Professor Liu Tuesday Thursday 6pm-7:20pm This week no one showed up to my office hours. I think this is due to the fact circuits are relatively easy to understand from my perspective. However, since second midterm is approaching soon, I've been keeping up with electromagnetism chapter, so hopefully I can help any students this week during office hours or in general.

Week 6

No students cam to office hours this week.

Week of Feb 15

I had a total of six students come in throughout the week.  We mostly went over homework problems involving circular motion or using the work-energy theorem.  Its nice to see that the students who regularly come in are working together to solve problems and aren't just looking to me to do it for them.  With a test approaching I'm expecting traffic to increase for next week.

Week 6

For both my Tuesday and Thursday office hours I had one student come in.  They both had questions about the homework and a particular problem with centripetal force.  Both of them were able to complete the homework problems on their own with minimal guidance.  Afterwards, they demonstrated their understanding of the problems by doing similar ones.  They gained a greater understanding of circular motion.

Week 5

Tom Reynolds
Physics 175
Dr. Paolone TTH 11

No one came to my office hours last week.  The average on the first exam was extremely high; most of the class may not need help and those who do may be seeking help from the professor.  Maybe people will come as the second exam approaches.

Week 5

This week nobody came to me for help in office hours. I wasn't surprised, however, because their exam was the day before so I didn't anticipate anyone being too worried about learning more physics. However, a few students from a different lecture came to ask for help from their respective UTAs, so I got to help explain a few concepts with them. Hopefully next week the students will have their minds back on physics so I can get some students.

WEEK 5

Things were fairly slow this week in regard to office hours. I had one student come in on monday with a few example problems on Newton's laws that he had a found on the internet. We worked through the problems together, and he felt more confident in his abilities and understanding. As for Tuesday and Wednesday, no students attended; however, a student contacted me through email about a web assign problem, and pointed him in the right direction.

Broccio M/W/F 1-1:50pm

Week of February 8

This week, I did not have any students come to office hours since I had to reschedule two of them. Today I am holding extra office hours for any students who need help. Right now, the students are learning about work, energy, and uniform circular motion. I hope that near the end of this week I get more students so that I can help them out with their homework that's due every Saturday.

Danielle Newman
Broccio MWF 1-1:50 PM

Week 5

Bhupinder Singh Professor Liu Tuesday Thursday 6pm-7:20pm This week, I didn't have any students come to my office hours, however, I helped a student with a web assign question. Other than that, the students are learning about circuits which is relatively easy, so I don't think anyone will have any trouble this upcoming week. However, I'm well prepared to help anyone. Hope to see some more students in my office hours this week.

Week 5

On Tuesday I had one student come to my office hours.  He needed help with solving problems involving forces, especially solving the algebraic part of problems with 2 variables.  He left with a better understanding and was able to complete similar problems on his own.  Thursday I also had one student.  She only had issues with one homework problem, but it wasn't due to doing the problem incorrectly.  She had simply typed the wrong numbers into her calculator.

Week 4

I had four different students come to my office hours this week. All of them have come to my hours at least once before.  I mainly helped them with homework problems and helped clarify and explain important concepts in the class.  They are working on electric potential right now and some of the homework is quite difficult (not necessarily numerically but conceptually). I think that overall it was productive and helpful to them.

-Alex Connor

PHYS 0175 Paolone

Week 6

This past week I had one student come in on Monday to discuss two questions from the homework. She particularly had trouble with gravitational force and how to visualize the problem. She also had a question from one of the video checkpoint questions dealing with rotational kinematics, particularly with defining variables. Although we haven't specifically gone over example problems dealing with rotational kinematics yet  in class, we then went over the meaning behind each variable and how these rotational equations relate to the translational kinematics we were doing earlier in the year.

I didn't have any students come to my office hours on Wednesday or Friday.

Joe Musiol
Broccio MWF 1-1:50

Week 5 (Feb 8)

Four students visited me this past week.
The first wanted to talk about her exam - things that she thought she didn't get, and how to understand questions.
The two that came on Tuesday asked homework questions, and their main question was about the block against a wall with a force pushing at an angle to the surface of the vertical wall - coming in, they didn't understand how the concepts of normal force, friction, and applied force interplay.
My Friday student came for help on the tension extra credit lab. What stumped her was the idea that tension along a string is equal all throughout (assuming masslessness, of course).

Week of Feb 8

I had a total of 6 students show up to office hours this week, with the heaviest traffic on Friday.  Students mostly wanted help with homework problems.  One of the biggest challenges they had was recognizing velocity vectors should not be in a free body diagram.  Also, after we went over why it makes sense that if an object is not accelerating then the net force acting on that object is zero, the students were able to solve the problems much easier.  I am expecting more students to come in next week when their exams are returned.

Week 5

This past week my students had an exam on Monday. Two students came to my office hours on Monday as they take place before their class. Main topics included clarifications on vectors as well as doing kinematic, both 1D and 2D, problems from the assigned homework and textbook.

On Wednesday no students came. This is no surprise as there was no new material to go over after the exam.

Nick Pelosi
PHYS 0110 Dr. Busche

Week 5

This week no one came to office hours. I am not surprised by this seeing as the first test was earlier this week and not much new material has been covered.

Weeks 4 & 5

Week 4, I had one student come in on Monday and two students Wednesday. On Monday we discussed the physics exploration bonus assignment. Her main trouble focused on kinematics in two dimensions, so we did a sample problem so I could she her that she could that of the X & Y directions are independent. The two students on Wednesday wanted clarification on a problem done in-class on Wednesday's lecture. Their trouble centered on using two equations to solve for two, unknown variables. I had no students visit my office hours on Friday.

Week 5, I had one student come to my office hours on Monday. We discussed two problems from the homework that dealt with free fall. On Wednesday I had one student come in with questions regarding vector problems from the book. Specifically, we went over breaking vectors down into their components and adding them to find a resultant vector. I had another student come in on Wednesday with homework questions about projectile motion. We worked over these problems, paying extra attention to breaking the problem into X and Y components separately. No students came in Friday as our first exam was taken earlier in the day.

Joe Musiol
Broccio MWF 1-1:50

Weeks 1-4

During weeks 1-2 I didn't have any students come to office hours. However, during week 3 I had one student and during week 4 I had two students. All of the questions that the students had were about projectile motion. It was relatively easy to work through the problems on the board and help the students attain a concrete foundation of how to tackle such problems. Having our own UTA room is a HUGE improvement from the previous semesters that I have been a UTA for physics. The white boards make it easy to go over specific problems and there are often several UTAs in the room so we can all contribute to helping the student who needs assistance.

Weeks 1-4

For the first couple of weeks, no one came to office hours. This past week, however, three students came to seek help. Seeing as this was the week before the exam, we just reviewed some problems on vectors and free fall.

Weeks 1-4

Thomas Reynolds
Physics 175
Paolone T TH 11:00

So far not a single student has come to my office hours.  There was an announcement made last week on Courseweb to remind students that this resource is available to them.  Hopefully there will be someone here next week.  They have already had the first test and no one came for help.  I did proctor the exam and assisted with handing out the test papers.

Weeks 2-5

Weeks 2-5 of holding office hours went very well.  I have had a consistent group of 5-6 students coming to at least one session each week.  We generally review topics covered in Dr. Broccio's videos  and go over homework problems.  I am encouraged to see that most of the students are coming in to actually get help with learning concepts, and not necessarily coming in just because they want me to walk them through the homework.

Lat week, I also held a review session in preparation for exam one, and had 12 students show up.  It went much more smoothly than I was expecting.  For anyone looking to hold an exam review in the future I found this general layout to be pretty effective: before the students arrived, I wrote a 3-4 questions on the board that covered topics I thought to be the most important.  We then went over each of the problems in pretty good detail, and I had members of the class come up and solve them and give their reasoning too (to show how there may be more than one correct way to solve a problem).  Then I opened the group to questions involving conceptual questions only.  After going through any conceptual questions then I turned to solving any of the assigned problems from the book that the students had on the board.  I left this for last, as some student didn't have any difficulties with these problems, so they could leave early.  All told, this process took about 90 minutes.

I should also say I was excited to see that in a class survey of how students studied for exam one, 13% of students found tutors to be the most effective.  Good job everyone!

Weeks 1-4

Jan. 19:

Two students attended my session. There was a homework problem asking the change in momentum of a group of bullets striking a wall, aimed at helping students understand the kinetic theory of gases. Both students were having trouble with the problem. Their algebra was correct, but they were entering a positive momentum change. Once they realized that moving -> stopped was a negative change in momentum, lon capa accepted their answer.

There was a problem involving rescaling of the AMU. Both students were struggling, and I presented the problem as a unit conversion, as both students were familiar from general chemistry. This was enough for one student to solve the problem, but it remained abstract to the other. I was unable to make it fully clear to her, but she was confident she would be able to solve it on her own given that hint.

One of the students was struggling with adiabatic gas expansion. She was unfamiliar with the formula PV^gamma..., and after being shown this, she noted that the ideal gas law would follow, and was confident she could solve it on her own.

1/20,1/26,1/27.

No students attended my sessions on these dates. Homework was due 1/19 and there was an exam 1/29, and no students produced textbook questions in that time.

2/2:

There was a student struggling with a problem involving the electric force between two balls suspended from the ceiling. I suggested that he break the string tension into its x- and y-components and this made the concept clear to him. I did the writing on the whiteboard, so I hope I did not give too many hints, but I believe he solved the problem on his own past that point.

There was also a 0174 student struggling with his some concepts in Newton's Laws. Particularly, there was a problem with a rope hanging over a tree limb, with a monkey and box on either side. The problem was asking the acceleration with which the monkey would have to climb to lift the box from the ground. I suggested that the student reduced the monkey (and all other potential force generators) to boxes on a force diagram. This problem was still intuitively abstract to him (and me), but this method generated the correct answer as a proof of the method for simplifying the problem.

With that same 0174 student, we went over a problem with boxes on slants, connected by a pulley. He wanted to simplify the problem into "cookbook" type solutions he could remember for the future. I tried to convince him that it was an unreliable strategy in physics, but I did not get the impression that he believed me. As the course progresses, I'm hopeful he will try to slow down his approach.

2/3:

A 0110 student came to the session unsure how to solve the problem in which two projectiles were approaching each other in 1D. I asked the student to write out all of her known variables, and the value she was looking for (time). Once she did that, she was better able to visualize the problem and solved it on her own.

Corey Williams

Physics 0111 (Dr. Lynch)

Took 174/175.

Weeks 1-4

Bhupinder Singh Professor Liu Tuesday Thursday 6pm-7:20pm I had no students come to my office hours for the first three week. The most traffic i got was before the first exam which was last week. Other than that, I haven't seen any students struggling too much. I think Dr. Liu is explaining the concepts really well, and by talking to some of the students after the exam, they thought it was really fair. Other than that, hopefully, some students come to my office hours this week and I can provide them with the help they seek.

Weeks 1-4

I had 2 students in week 1, 2 students in week 2, 2 student in week 3, and 5 students in week 4. I have established 2 regulars! Most of the things we talk about are homework problems and video checkpoints. I act as a guide as they think through their problems, and let them make a mistake, but make sure they know why they made that mistake, and how to think to get on the right path. Mistakes made were about things like not being able to use trig to find the range given the initial projectile angle, or misusing the range and time equations by applying it to an asymmetrical trajectory. Other tips I gave were breaking apart a problem into easily identifiable/solvable pieces, and connecting the x and y components/organizing the information so that the x and y components do not get mixed up.

Aside from office hours, I held a review session for the exam. I advertised it as a session for tips on how to approach problems (mostly for new-to-physics students), and we ended up having to bring extra seats in from the room next door. Don't know how it ended up helping them (the exam scores aren't out yet), but I did go over common misconceptions regarding vectors and kinematics, and tips on how to save some time solving problems and connecting concepts to the equations.

Weeks 1-4

No students showed up the first week, but for weeks 2 and 3 a few started coming for help with the homework.  After helping them, I encouraged them to try the same problem with different numbers at a later time to ensure they had a thorough understanding of the concepts.  However most were able to do the problems on their own, there were just small mistakes in calculations.  Three students showed up week 4.  All of them had questions with the homework, which we went over.  After that a few of them wanted to review some concepts for their first exam.  Afterwards they had a better understanding of ballistic motion and the equations associated with it.

Weeks 4 & 5

Hi all!

Office hours have been very good for the students. During week 4, I had three students attend to go over some homework problems. During week 5, I had 7 students come in order to go over textbook problems for the exam they had on Friday. I went over a practice exam with them and helped them work through the recommended textbook problems. Overall, office hours have been going very well and attendance has been increasing.

Danielle Newman
Dr. Broccio MWF 1pm

Weeks 1-4

No students came to me the first 3 weeks of class. Last week I saw my first students who needed help. I also saw two students today, February 8th, the beginning of week 5 as my class has an exam tonight. We mainly worked through the assigned homework to ensure the students were getting the correct answers.

Nick Pelosi
Dr. Busche Phys 0110

Week 4

Office hours went well. I had my first opportunity to tutor students this week. On Tuesday, a student briefly stopped by to clarify the correct reasoning on a homework problem. On Wednesday, a student stopped by and we throughly practiced quantitative kinematics equations in both one and two dimensions for nearly an hour and a half. The student said he made significant progress in his understanding, and I would agree. He came back again today with a friend (Thursday) and we reviewed basic concepts involving vectors.

Broccio Phys 0110

-Nicholas Bascou

Weeks 1-3

Weeks 1-3 went well. I had a small number of students stop by my office hours with some questions pertaining to their first exam.  During the first 2 weeks no students attended my hours, but I posted on courseweb that I was available to help and a few students came during the 3rd week.  Our sessions together were productive and a I think I helped them gain a better understanding of tough concepts such as electric field and gauss's law.  I also helped to proctor the exam.

-Alex Connor

PHYS 0175 Paolone