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.