Weeks of March 14th - April 4th

Weeks of March 14th and 21st
No one came to my office hours.
Week of March 28th
I had one student come to my office hours on Monday. She had a few questions on the video checkpoints that were due later that day. Her questions were mostly about the ideal spring model and simple harmonic motion. She had trouble interpreting graphs that showed the springs position, velocity, and acceleration. I found that it was helpful to remind her of previous concepts, like the conservation of energy, and how all of the springs kinetic energy is translated into potential energy, and this potential energy is measured relative to the resting position. We were able to work through several of these examples and even looked at a couple of similar examples from the textbook.
I had three students come to my office hours on Wednesday. They had trouble with problems from the homework dealing with static equilibrium. These questions included setting to net torque equal to zero, as well as the X and Y components of forces. I found that it was most helpful to draw out a free body diagram and help them label all of the forces present in the problem. Then, we discussed previous topics which helped them conceptualize the problem, such as, because the scenario is in equilibrium, the acceleration is zero, and all torques, X, and Y components of forces must sum to zero as a result. After we worked through one problem on the homework, the students were able to do similar problems from the homework on their own, which was excellent to see.
No one came on Friday after their third exam.
Week of April 4th
No one came to my office hours.

Joe Musiol
Broccio MWF 1-1:50