Week of 9/25

On Wednesday, three people came to office hours. They had questions regarding a problem where a cart was traveling up a ramp with a speed Vo, and you needed to find the max distance it could travel. The problem was difficult because no values were given, meaning that you needed to solve everything symbolically. Also, this was one of the first problems where the students had to break gravity into components due to the angle of the ramp.

On Thursday and Friday, no one came to office hours. I was surprised, due to the fact that there is an exam on Monday.

Week of Sept. 25th

I once again had a total of zero students come into my office hours on Thursday. The students had a test on Wednesday, so maybe office hours right after a test weren't that helpful. I'm starting to think that my office hours are pretty useless because of the class having three TA's who host office hours and are better teachers than me. Not sure what to do about it.

week of 9/25

I did not have any student for this week. and class average for the first test is 78, it is not bad. and hope they can keep their hard work!

Week of 9/25

Tuesday office hour had no activity as usual (and I'm thankful, because I was just starting to recover from a nasty cold I got over the weekend). I had to reschedule my Thursday office hour to Friday on account of the co-op fair, so I missed the rush that I usually get.  However, I did have some students come in with homework questions even though the homework had just been due, so hopefully I was able to help people out who were still struggling with the questions.
Due to the aforementioned sickness, I decided to skip the grading session this week. No amount of hand sanitizer could have stopped me from infecting everyone in the flurry of papers that probably ensued that night.
Despite my sickness, I managed to make it to every morning lecture, even if I showed up late to most of them. I was one of two UTAs to show up Friday, so I may start attending primarily Fridays and only filling in other lectures if people can't show up.
Aside from sickness and rescheduling, this was a fairly ordinary week. Unfortunately I don't have much else to say.

-Jeffrey Socash

Week of 9/25

Office hours were definitely quieter than usual. I had no one come in Monday which was expected because the students just had their first Physics exam earlier in the day. I had two students come into my office hours Friday to go over homework problems due in a few days. In class, students are struggling to understand the different gravitational components when an object (usually a block) is on a ramp. Thus, I got several questions during the lecture about the different force components and how to apply them to the specific problem.

Week of 9/25

This week, no one came to my office hours. This is probably because many Physics 1 classes, including mine, just had a midterm and do not have much new material they need to review. I'm sure that I will have more students to review material with as we get closer to the next midterm.

Week of 9/25

This is the week before the exam and only one person showed up to office hours on Monday. I helped her with the homework and mainly cleared up the confusion on electric charges and thermodynamics (signs of work and heat).

 I am hoping everyone is not doing last minute studying for the first exam and waiting till the weekend! 

Week of 9/25

A student came into office hours on Tuesday. She was someone that I had worked with before when the previous TA and I switched shifts. Her concerns were about friction and when the coordinate grid was rotated because of a ramp. We worked through it and I feel that she understood it much better.
Nobody came into office hours on Thursday despite the exam on Friday.

September 25-29

Given that there was an exam this Monday, I figure people were pretty burnt out from cramming physics the past few days. This would explain the fact that office hours this week were pretty much empty. OEH 304 was essentially a ghost town for the hours I used it, save for one tenacious student that apparently loves physics enough to come in and ask for help on the next homework right after the test. I expect things will go back to normal next week when we cover forces and friction, which are pretty tricky subjects in my opinion.

Week of 9/25

This was the week of the first exam for my class.  Because of this I had a few more people come into office hours, but still not as many as I expected.  Hopefully I will get a few more in the future. Hopefully it will not just be because of their first exam scores.

Week of 9/25

One person came to office hours on Wednesday. We discussed Gas Laws and thermodynamics. At least, I am getting a lot of studying for other classes done while sitting quietly in hillman waiting for students, so I guess that's a plus :D

I wonder if more people will start coming after this first exam (?).

Week of 9/25

We had our first exam of the semester this Monday. I got to the classroom earlier than usual this week and was immediately greeted by several students with last minute questions. After answering them, I handed out scantrons and helped the students settle in. I got a look at the exam questions, which seemed fair and similar to the problems we had gone over in class and office hours. Hopefully, the students thought so too.

Office hours were quiet this week, but as we moved forward with new lecture material, I received several questions in class. There seemed to be some general confusion regarding Newton's Laws and their conceptual applications. I've been trying my best to explain the conceptual bases of the Laws, but I hope that in time, with practice problems that apply the conceptual framework, students will be able to better grasp the ideas with less confusion. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to next week's topics and hope to see more students in office hours.

Week of 9/15

I only got one student at my office hours today, but it was a student in engineering physics. Even so, I think I was able to set her on the right track. I wasn't expecting too many people since it was right after the first exam. With the introduction of Newton's laws in lecture, I got a lot of questions about concept checks. I'm expecting more people at next week's office hours.

Week of 9/18

Tom Reynolds
Dr. Tae Min Hong
Physics 175 MWF 9

This week I had a whole bunch of people come to my office hours.  There was written homework and online homework and no one knew how to do any of it.  The written homework was very involved and required knowledge of physics as well as a bit of excel coding.  The trickiest part of all this was splitting my attention between 15 people. I kind of just rotated through the room and answered as many questions as possible in quick bursts.
When I was leaving at the end of my hour on Thursday, someone yelled "please don't leave!" so that was probably the highlight of the day.

Week of 9/18

On thursday I got a bunch of people that needed help with an excel based assignment involving lines of charge which I helped them understand. Friday I got no one

Week of 9/18

This week was forunately a little better than the previous ones, a few students came to office hours and I was able to sort out their problems. One thing that I thought was an important skill that the students had trouble with is identfying the proper equations to apply based on the variables that were given. I think part of the problem is that kinematics uses a lot of equations that all include v, t, x , etc. and it can be hard to figure out which one will get you most directly to the correct answer. One suggestion which seemed to help the students was to break down a big problem into a smaller example, for example when working with a projectile it can be easier to first find the component velocities, then find the time until the projectile hits the ground, and so on until the problem is complete, rather than smushing a lot of equations into one giant one that looks confusing and is hard to follow.

Week of 9/11

This week was not any more interesting than last week unfortunately, nobody showed up again for this session, but I did get a chance to review some of the materials the professor was giving out so I could get acquainted with what the students were learning. I really hope that the students decide to come more often next week. One thing I was thinking about was what I did when I was in Physics 1 and I think I did not come to office hours until the week before the first test, so that is probably when I will get more students coming to office hours.

September 18-22

This week was much more hectic in terms of people coming in for office hours. Many people had questions regarding not only the homework for two-dimensional motion but also earlier topics in preparation for the upcoming exam. A lot of people specifically had questions about what I thought might be on the test, as well as study tips.

Another thing I found to be a bit overwhelming was the number of people that kept texting my cell phone asking for help on how to do problems and if I could meet them at the library to help. I do personally know a bunch of people in the class, so they already had my contact info going into it - I didn't mind helping people out at the library this week but only because my schedule is relatively lukewarm test-wise these couple days. On a more stressful week, this probably would have driven me up a wall lol

Anyway, I expect things will die down next week with the conclusion of unit one. The review session went pretty well, as me and Juhi had 18 students at our session. They asked a lot of questions and I feel that we made it through the more important of the questions I had drawn up without losing too many people during explanations. Hopefully it makes a difference in their grades.

Week of 9/18

There were equally as many people in office hours (about 20) before the weekly homework is due. However, they had less questions and seemed to be understanding the content better than last week. I think they are grasping the way of thinking physics requires and also the teaching style of the professor. The first midterm is next week so I am expecting this week will be busy.

Week of 9/18

This week, 8 students came to office hours on Wednesday. Unlike last week, the students had very specific questions and understood the material much better than last week. Most students were able to come in to office hours and leave within 15 minutes because they grasped the concepts well. Two or three students stayed the duration of office hours but were generally able to answer any questions they had amongst themselves.
On Thursday, nobody came in for Physics 1. I did help a few students if they had a simple question that I could answer for Physics 2.

Week of 9/18

Nobody came to office hours this week. I spoke with the TA who has hours right before me on Tuesday. He said that he also has yet to have a visit from a student in Dr. Nero's class, yet he always has students from other teachers when I take over. I think that maybe one or more of the other professors assign harder written homework, while all of Nero's is done through sapling. However, I do provide a lot of help answering questions in the lectures. I'm hoping that I get some people to drop by in preparation for the exam this Friday.

Week of Sept. 18th

Last week was no different then the other weeks I have experienced so far. I once again had no one come into my office hours, which makes me think that maybe the time of my office hours isn't the greatest for my students. My class has a test next Wed. making me think that there may be new students who come to me during OH for help after the test. Otherwise, I don't know how to make myself more open to my students.

week of 9/18

only 3 students came in my office hour, mostly about homework and end chapter questions. they are okay, just struggle with the algebra mostly, the concept is clear. good luck on the exam everyone!

Week of 9/18

On Wednesday, two people came, who had the same questions as students the week before. In one problem you needed to solve for the acceleration of a runner, and in another problem you had to find the starting height of an acorn given that it passed a meter stick in exactly one second. Once again, the problems seemed pretty difficult at first, but after going through each of the steps needed to find the solution the students seemed to understand them a lot better.

On Thursday, two people needed help with a tension question where two blocks are attached by a rope and hung over two pulleys. After explaining that the blocks accelerations are the same, and that they need two equations to solve for the tension, they understood the problem.

On Friday, no one from my Physics I class came, but I helped one student with a true/false Lon Capa question.

Week of 9/18

I did not have any students drop by my office hours on Monday or Friday, usually there are people on Friday that come by for last minute homework questions!  I hope to see more people next week as they are exposed to some material that they may not be used to dealing with like charges, electricity, etc.

Week of 9/18

Class: PHYS 0175 (Hong)

This week was a fairly ordinary one. As usual, I try to attend lectures as often as I can. I made all three lectures this week. Hong decided to shorten the time on clicker questions after I brought up some student feedback during the grading session, so I saw less patrolling the room to field questions (I didn't even get up once during the Friday lecture).  UTA lecture seems to diminish as the week progresses, so I prioritize attending Friday lectures the most.

As for the grading sessions, the TAs and UTAs reached a consensus that the quantitative problems Hong assigns make for frustrating grading experiences, as including numbers results in many plug-and-chug techniques that make discerning a full-credit answer difficult (particularly when grading in a short time period is a concern). Hong said he will try to assign problems with strictly variables in the upcoming homeworks, so hopefully grading will be less frustrating.

I was assigned to patrol the CourseWeb homework discussion board this week, but it got absolutely no traffic so I didn't post anything. Hong has actually noticed this as well, and has posted that he might close down the board if it doesn't get any use.

My office hours are seeing the same pattern again: perhaps one or two students showing up on Tuesday (if it all), and then a massive influx of students on Thursday right before the work is due. I even had one of my former floormates text me asking for help during my evening lab monitor shift. Of course it's expected that a lot of people will delay in starting their work until close to the due date, but I feel like consistently having to rotate between helping anywhere from 5-8 students at once on Thursday is a bit excessive. Fortunately another UTA for Hong comes in right after so it's an easy matter of passing the torch to him once my hours are finished. Still, it's sometimes very frustrating having to deal with so many people unable to understand homework at once, and I'm not sure if it's just students being students or a problem with how homework is written and assigned.

Again, a regular week. Office hour attendance is definitely getting larger as each week progresses, though. I only expect it to increase even further as the first midterm approaches. I'm sure it'll be busy but I have confidence I'll be able to be of help to the class.

-Jeffrey Socash

Week of 9/18

Now that we have moved into forces and more complicated applications, I am having many more students come to my office hours. For the most part, students were struggling with understanding how forces are applied on inclined planes and required a thorough explanation before they understood how they should solve these types of problems. I went through several different lon-capa problems step-by-step and tried to explain the concepts behind each step as I went. I am expecting the number of students coming to office hours to increase dramatically now that midterms are starting and they need more help understanding the concepts they are about to be tested on.

Week of 9/18

Mark Vrabel

Physics 0175

Dr. Hong

This week, I had two students come to my Wednesday office hours, and three students come to my Thursday hours.  In both sessions, we worked mainly on the written homework.  In the first session I was able to help them answer the first few parts of the first problem, but we got stuck on parts C and D.  I wasn't able to figure these parts out until my Thursday office hours, but I hope the Wednesday students were able to figure it out as they said they would visit Dr. Hong to clear things up.

Week of 9/18

This Week we moved onto forces.  The students seemed to pick up the introductory concepts with this pretty quickly so I did not have many people attend office hours.  I did still get a few questions during lecture that I was able to help with.  I expect to see a lot more people in office hours next week when they are preparing for their test.

Week of 9/18

This week I had more students show up to my office hours. On Monday, I was going over the old HW problems that three individuals had missed and still did not know how to do. Though Dr. Broccio went over this one question during class, the students still had questions regarding that problem so I spent more time going over it. On Friday, I had a group of students come in with the same question. As a result, I ended up doing the problem on the whiteboard and basically taught the problem to the whole group because everyone was confused about how to set up and start the particular problem. Also, I held my first group recitation yesterday with another UTA and it went really well. We went over four problems which included vectors, kinematics, and free-fall problems. It was a very rewarding experience because the students felt more prepared for the exam as a result of the session. There are several students who are repeatedly seeking help and using all the resources offered for this class which reassures me that the UTA office hours are truly helping. 

Week of 9-18

This week we began electricity in Physics 2 (!!! onwards to the cool stuff). Since these are pretty basic concepts I didn't expect too many people to show up, and unsurprisingly, no one showed up for Wednesday office hours. On Friday however, with the homework being due in a couple hours, I did have a couple students drop by.

The first exam is quickly approaching, I expect more people to come by next week in preparation for it.

Week of 9/18

This week was quieter than last week, in terms of office hours. I had one student come in and ask about projectile motion and vector addition. I was fairly surprised at the lack of questions, considering there's an exam next Monday.

On a positive note though, another UTA and I held a review session yesterday and we had a great turnout. There were at least 35 students that came with questions about the exam. We also went through some additional practice problems dealing with vectors and free-fall problems. The students seem to be preparing well for the exam and I wish them the best of luck next week.

Week of 9/18

No one came to my office hours this week, which was pretty shocking considering there's an exam next week. However, I got several questions in class when we started projectile motion. Students are just getting used to the concept of objects falling from the same height hitting the ground at the same time, regardless of one being launched at an angle. Also, Dr. Broccio decided to try out UTA review sessions for the first exam. Tomorrow I will be holding a one hour session with another UTA. I'm curious to see whether people will actually show up or not.

September 11-15

This week's office hours were still relatively quiet, but still a big step up from last week's! And by big step up I mean 2 more people came in than last week, for a grand total of 2 students this week. The questions were largely the tricky homework questions for the homework, including one about a marathon racer accelerating partway through his circuit. I had some trouble with that one but we figured it out eventually. Overall, we made some significant progress with the two students that came in.

The Chronicles of UTA Ted: Week 2 - Humble Beginnings

First I would like to apologize to all my avid readers about the delayed blog post. Rest assure that I am safe and in good health. I merely have just been busy last week and the task of writing a blog post about my 2nd exciting week UTAing just eluded my mind. But without further delay...

Tuesday 3 P.M. - 

From what I can remember the weather was just peachy. Really beginning to think that this UTA room needs some windows. And like what's with all these half circle desks. Who even decided that this was a good design to have? But I'm beginning to rant, but the room can be quite claustrophobic at times. For the first hour of Tuesday, it was just me and another UTA idly awaiting curious students. One student finally came, bad news is it was for the other UTA. Good news is I'm 1 - 0 in fantasy.

Wednesday 11 A.M. - 

So due to some issues with conflicting office hours I had to change it to Wednesdays at 11 now (Gonna have to change it again... But that juicy bit is for next week's blog post). Finally! The drought ended and I got my first student to help, freshman too, but not from my class. Eh, whatever, I don't discriminate between the type of physics. I helped him out with a projectile motion problem as well as a centripetal motion problem and he thanked me for my time and -got the fuc- and left.

From my observation there were a lot of students from mechanics that needed help. I still have yet to get a student from the class I UTA for, but I'm still hopeful that I remain undefeated in fantasy (2-0 btw).

Week of 9/11

This week 10 people came into office hours on Wednesday. There was a general confusion on how to complete constant acceleration problems that involved angles. For example, question 4 of the homework provided some trouble for many of the students who came in for help. Many students did not understand how to break the velocity vector into vertical and horizontal components in order to complete the problem or forgot that the vertical and horizontal components could be treated completely separate from each other. By helping to break each problem into steps, the students were able to complete the problem on their own and understand how to apply the lessons we learned in the vector part of the course to kinematics.

On Thursday, only one person came in who was not from Professor Kuo's class. He needed help understanding how to proceed on a Lon Capa problem with 2 balls shot upward at different times with the same velocity and wanted to find the time when the 2 balls were at the same height. I advised the student to break the problem into 2 parts, one when only 1 ball was in the air to the moment the second one is shot, and one part when both balls are in the air. Using this advice, the student was able to find the time when the 2 balls reached the same height.

Week of 9/11

This week was much busier than last. On office hours Wednesday, nearly 20 people arrived. I believe some of them believe their pre-lecture videos they have to watch are a bit confusing. It makes sense that we see this surge of attendance the day homework is due. It is helpful to ask what in particular was confusing about the lecture.

Week of 9/11

Mark Vrabel
Dr. Hong
Physics 175 MWF 9

This week I changed my office hours from Friday (after the homework was due) to Wednesday and Thursday.  Even with early office hours at 8 a.m. Thursday, I still had three students show up with questions on both the written and online homework.  I worked with them in a group and we spent most of the time going over a problem about a semi-circular distribution of charge, which required an integral.  I showed them a general strategy to solve electric field problems involving integrals.

week of 9/11

Tom Reynolds
Dr. Hong
Physics 175 MWF 9

This week I had ~5 people to my office hours.  It was a manageable number of people.  They were mostly just asking about the same few questions which involved distributions of charge.  I wanted to stress how to set up the integral because that is the real point of confusion and they will likely need to set up integrals in the future. Plus they are generally capable of working through the math on their own.  I really only need to check it and give them tips every now and then.

Week of 9/11

This week I had one student come to office hours Tuesday for a kinematic problem. He was from a different class but stayed after from he previous TA. He was pretty much able to solve it himself, he was just really confused with the equations because he didn't take physics in high school. No one came to office hours on Thursday.

Week of 9/11

Three people came to office hours on Wednesday, and all of them had questions about homework 2 question 4. This involved throwing a rock from the top of a cliff and solving for the initial and final velocity vectors, time taken to hit the ground, and the speed as it hits the ground. I think this question was more difficult than some others because there were no values given, meaning you had to solve for all of these symbolically.

On Thursday, someone came for help with Physics II. The question involved a PV diagram, which I did not remember too well. There was also another Physics I UTA there, and together we were able to reach a solution with the student.

On Friday, there were four people who came for help with Physics I. They all had similar questions involving one problem where you need to solve for the acceleration of a runner, and another problem where you had to find the starting height of an acorn given that it passed a meter stick in exactly one second. The problems seem pretty difficult at first, but after going through each of the steps needed to find the solution the students seemed to understand them a lot better.

Week of 9/11

I helped some people with the concept of lines of charge and explained how to integrate the line of charge and how an integral works.

Week of 9/4

Helped a couple people out with an oscillation problem

Week of 9/11

For Monday no students came for office hours. On Friday, two students came for homework help because there homework was due in 50 minutes. :) We went over the carnot engine and what equations correspond with that versus a carnot refrigerator. They were having trouble with identifying the sign of Work, heat, and internal energy based on a graph that was given. I think that may be a topic that needs to be went over more in class or explained more for the students to understand it better.

week of 9/11

there isnt any student came over for help.......

Week of 9/11

Class: PHYS 0175 - Hong

This week went about the same as last week in terms of lecture presence.  Missed Monday due to sickness but was present for the other lectures and the grading session.
I tried to balance my office hours (Tuesday and Thursday), but with the homework due every week on Friday, I've noticed that it's actually heavily unbalanced towards Thursdays.  Whereas on Tuesday I was more or less just eating a bagel and watching TV for an hour, on Thursday so many people came in with homework questions that I more or less was leading a mini-lecture on continuous lines of charge to 5-6 students at once. At least now people can't say I don't do anything. A few students who visited my office hours leveraged a few critiques of how Dr. Hong allocates lecture time for conceptual questions vs actual quantitative problems, and I was actually inclined to agree with them. I may bring it up to him during our next meeting (though I'll definitely convey it in a more pleasant way).  Though it was a busy Thursday, I do appreciate the business because it's teaching me to be more articulate and effective in how I explain problems.
I was also assigned to monitor the CourseWeb discussion board for homework questions, but Dr. Hong had already preemptively posted threads addressing common homework questions and he actually ended up beating me to the punch for most of the student posts (I help you out for a reason, you know...).

Week of 9/11

This week three people came to my office hours, but only one was for PHYS0174. The first person who came had a question on electric fields, and while I did my best to help her, we could not figure out the problem and I suggested that she email either her professor or graduate TA. Another physics 2 student came later to ask questions about her lon-capa assignment. The problem covered PV diagram from thermodynamics and we were able to get the problem right with the help of another TA. These students made me realize that, while I may not be a TA for physics 2, I should make sure I am still familiar with the topics so that I am able to help these students since there are no physics 2 TAs present during my office hours. There was one student from physics 1 who needed someone to explain the concepts behind her physics lab. During our discussion, I felt I was able to accurately describe the concepts of net force, normal force, and acceleration and she seemed to really understand it by the time she left.

Week of Sept. 11th

This was the third week of classes, which was also the first week of students having homework assignments due. I expected students to come to my Office hours with questions, but again no one came. I believe this is because it is still early in the year and PHYS 0174 hasn't gotten into very complex problems yet. However, I did help some students that were waiting for their UTA with some PHYS 2 questions, nothing to complicated and for the most part it was just logical or theory questions.

week of 9/11

This week I had a few students show up to my office hours.  Most of their questions I was able to answer by just re-explaining the concepts involved with their problems in a different way.  In class I am getting asked more questions as well.  This was a clear change from last week when most students seemed to understand the concepts as they were being explained.  I am happy to have a little more to do and help the students learn.

Week of 9/11

Office hours were definitely busy on Friday as a lot of students came in with questions about the kinematic-related homework that is due this weekend. On Monday, I had one student come in and we went over a lecture about vectors that she had missed. Today, while working on a specific kinematic homework problem with a student, I realized that I needed to review some of these elementary physics topics because it took me a decent amount of time to do the problem and be able to explain it to the student. As one question took up a full hour and since this student lives in my residence hall, I am going over the second problem that troubled her at the end of the day today in our dorm. 

Week of 9/11

This week, a lot more students showed up at my office hours. Many of them had questions on kinematics, specifically projectile motion. After helping them, I realized I also had to brush up on some of these basic concepts. I struggled with one problem with a student for almost a full hour. I then had him return the next day so I could look at it a little longer. Of course, as soon as he left I immediately realized where we were going wrong. It was pretty rewarding to finally figure it out and successfully provide help the next day. 

Week of 9/11

I moved my office hours to Hillman Library, I think this will be an overall positive change as it's more accessible to students. On Wednesday no one came, however Friday morning I did assist a couple students on the Lon-Capa homework (I suspect that this will be a recurring event as Lon-Capa is due later today, due tomorrow do tomorrow amirite).

I think that more students will come by as the term progresses and the class gets harder.

Week of 9/11

During lecture this week, we started going over our first physics topic of the semester: kinematics. As Dr. Broccio did practice problems in lecture, I received plenty of questions from the students regarding the various equations and kinematic principles. Dr. Broccio's use of clicker questions in particular resulted in several concept related questions that I was able to answer during lecture. Office hours this week were much busier than last week. There were several homework problems that seemed to stump most students, but I was glad to help them out during office hours.

Overall, I felt more accomplished this week as a TA and look forward to helping students in the coming weeks!

Week of 9/4

Tom Reynolds
Physics 175
MWF 9

This week I had no students come to my Wednesday hours but 6 come to my Thursday hours.  I have a feeling that this is going to be typical.  The homework is due Friday so people will constantly be coming in at the last minute with no idea how to do it.  It should make for an exciting semester.

September 4-8

The only office hours I held this week were on Tuesday since Monday was Labor Day. No one came in which was to be expected but still a mild bummer. I'm sure it'll start to pick up in the coming weeks as the material gets more complex. Going into my second semester as Dr. Broccio's UTA I'm a lot more comfortable helping out in lecture and reaching out to people that may need help but aren't proactive in asking for assistance. Expect things to ramp up in a week or two

Week 2

I was so excited to finally start my new position helping students understand the fascinating world of physics. Only to be let down, I sitting by myself for 2 hours aimlessly waiting for a student to wander through the door to ask me a question.  Hopefully I'll get a better turnout next week.

The Chronicles of UTA Ted: Week 1 - Origins

Tuesday - 3 P.M. - 

The first week of office hours was a highly anticipated event, much like the start of the first week of football. The buildup of excitement and anxiety was there. Preseason was fun and all, but it could not compare to the real deal of the heart pounding action of a chance at the Superbowl. The start of the season meant also the start of fantasy football, one of the most highly played and talked about game in the country. About 1 in 10 males in America play the game and out of that 10% of the population about 80% are white males*.

So there I was a minority, within the fantasy world (and real one), scrolling through the ESPN fantasy app waiting for a potential student to meander into 304 OEH and drop me a question. But as I knew all to well, it was rare, if at all, that a student would come in for the first office hour. In addition, the TA and the professor had office hours during the same time as mine. Basically, the odds weren't in my favor and I spent the rest of the 2 hours catching up on homework and doing research for my upcoming fantasy draft.

---

Until next week. Ted out.



*Probably not exactly accurate but either is physics in it's entirely... So yea.

week 2

this is there is only one student came in. asked me some homework problems, she got no problem with the concept but having trouble solving equations and dealing with algebra.

WEEK 9/4

Did not have office hours on Monday because of labor day. Had office hours on Friday, two students stayed the whole hour. I helped them with their homework problems dealing with Ideal Gas Law and Thermodynamics. They seemed to be understanding the material and applying the equations correctly, a lot of problems occurring in units and just entering numbers in the calculator correctly.

Week of 9/4

Jeffrey Socash
Class: 0175 - Hong

Short week, but still a busy one.  This was the first week where we did all of our UTAing duties, including office hours and grading, so it was definitely an adjustment to make.
Grading went fine, but it was quite time-consuming.  It didn't help that I was assigned to grade a problem that a lot of the class was confused on, so I spent a lot of time writing the same explanation on so many different papers.  Still, it was a productive session.
As for office hours, this was the first week I held them.  I had three students come in, one on Tuesday and another on Thursday.  Given that homework is due on Friday mornings, I anticipate busy office hours on Thursday once the semester ramps up.  Holding office hours has also been a bit of a learning experience for me: I had Nero for 0175 so I've had to start taking notes in lecture myself just to cover certain things Hong puts on his homework that Nero never even mentioned to us! It certainly caught me a little off guard; fortunately, I was still able to resolve all the problems student came to me with during office hours.
Finally, lectures.  I'm still in the habit of attending each lecture (since we haven't fully established a rotating schedule among the UTAs yet) and we're all responsible for going around the room when there is an open discussion problem (something I remember UTAs doing for Nero, so I was familiar with the concept).  Again, I haven't run into anything I haven't been able to explain, so that's fortunate. Given that there's six UTAs, I imagine it can be hard to utilize them all but I feel as though the distribution of work has been fair and manageable so far.
No comment on CourseWeb discussion monitoring as I have not been assigned yet.

-Jeffrey Socash

Week of 9/4

On my office hours Tuesday a group was working with a TA as we switched shifts, one girl stayed after he left and we worked a couple homework problems. She was having trouble with kinematics, specifically a problem where the speed of a ball instantaneously increased by 10cm/s every second. At first she didn't know how to differentiate between this change in speed and acceleration, but soon we resolved the problem. No one came to my office hours on Thursday.

Week of 9/4

This was my first week holding office hours as a UTA and, unfortunately, no one showed up. I assume it is because we have only introduced basic concepts so far, so the material and homework are pretty straight forward. In class, everyone seems to be comprehending the material that's been shown to them, but that will probably start to change in a week or two and I expect I will start having a lot more people show up during office hours.

Week of 9/4

This week was the first week of office hours. Wednesday a few students from Professor Kuo's class came into office hours confused on one of the homework questions. I helped guide them through the problem by prodding their knowledge and referring to one of the examples in the lecture about the person throwing the ball straight upwards on a train moving at a constant velocity to help them understand relative motion. Thursday nobody from Professor Kuo's class came to office hours, but I helped a student in the Physics 2 class with understanding how to approach electric force problems.

Week 9/4

Office hours were busy on Wednesday, as this is the day homework was due for our section. The students seemed to think the homework material was significantly harder than the lecture entailed. It took some getting used to, as far as explaining your own thinking to another person, but by the end I believe I was able to convey information effectively to the students. They left the UTA room knowing more than when they entered.

Week of 9/4

No one from Professor Kuo's class came to my office hours Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. On Wednesday, a student in Physics 0175 was looking for his TA who was not there, so I helped him instead. We went over some problems involving the forces that point charges exert on each other. He understood the concept already for the most part, but just wanted to make sure he was doing the problems correctly

Week of Sept. 4th

Second week of classes started with Monday off, so my Monday lecture of course didn't happen. During the other two lectures, Mong lead the class through vectors and vector addition, subtraction, scalar multiplication and both the dot and cross product. We also got into projectile motion at the very end which nicely wrapped up the last few lectures. My office hours were pretty boring since no one came into, which I understand since its the second week and there isn't much to go over. I know all the students have my hours, so hopefully I will get to tutor someone next week.

Week of 9/4

This was my first week holding office hours as a physics UTA. Sadly, nobody showed up.  This was most likely because the material taught so far has been pretty straight forward.  I've noticed walking around in class that most of the students so far are understanding the concepts, however I have been able to help a few students that were stuck on in class problems.  I think in a week or two, when more concepts have been introduced, more people will come to my office hours.

Week of 9/4

Hey everyone, this was my first week as a physics UTA. Unfortunately, I didn't get any students in office hours, but the semester is just beginning so I hope to see more students. During our weekly lectures, I got to help several students with some of the algebra and geometry based concepts of our intro physics course. This interaction was my favorite part of the week and I look forward to assisting with problem-solving throughout the course. Best of luck to everyone throughout the semester!

Week of 9/4

This was my first week as a UTA and no students came to my office hours. During lecture, I was able to help some students with the algebra-based clicker questions the professor had asked. I attribute the lack of students coming to office hours to the fact that this week, the professor was simply reviewing basic math concepts that will be needed to solve future physics problems. Thus, I hope more students will come to office hours next week once the true physics material is introduced in class. 

Week of 9/4

First week as UTA. No one came. In class Dr. Clark covered the ideal gas laws, and introduced work and energy equations for monotonic gases. I'm a little surprised no one came because this content is quite confusing, at least on the first run through (plus I know other students in the class who did struggle with the homework, so I'm unsure why no one came?)

Maybe next week more students will show up!

Week of 9/4

This was my first week as a UTA and nobody came in for help. In class the professor was reviewing the basics like linear kinetmatics and scientific notation, so I suppose it's just that everyone feels pretty comfortable at this point. I really do hope that some people show up next time though, because although I enjoyed being able to work on other stuff in the mean time, it was incredibly boring to just sit there and wait. I think that maybe in a week or two things will change.

Week of 9/4

This was my first week holding office hours and unfortunately I did not have any students show up. We were reviewing a lot of algebra and did not get too deep into physics material, so I am thinking more people will come next week. However, I did get a couple questions in class, again primarily relating to math. I was able to help a group of students with trigonometry functions. I'm looking forward to next week and hoping I will get to help out more people in office hours.

Week of Aug. 28th

First week of classes and the first week as a UTA!
The week started with myself meeting up with my professor, Prof. Roger Mong, after the first lecture of PHYS 0174. The lectures moved fast this week with the class getting through both chapter 1 and 2, while also reviewing some calculus material. Of course, with it being the first week, I was not scheduled any office hours but I will be hosting them next week from 8-11AM on Thursday and I am looking forward with helping students with their work.

Week of 8/27/17

First week of classes, and first week of being a UTA.  How exciting!
This Monday, I was able to meet with Dr. Hong, the graduate TAs, and the rest of the UTAs I'm currently TAing 0175 with.  I was able to set up office hours and look forward to holding them starting this upcoming week.
As this was the first week, nothing too significant happened in terms of TAing.  I attended the three lectures this week and assisted students during open discussion questions along with the other UTAs.  Aside from that, though, nothing in the way of office hours (which I learned after the fact I was supposed to attend; sorry, Dr. Hong!) I also briefly helped answer some questions and address some misconceptions on the CourseWeb discussion blog for the first homework assignment.
Besides that, however, not much happened in terms of actual UTA duty.  It was mostly setup.  Hopefully now that everything is set straight and roles are being assigned, I'll be able to contribute more as a UTA starting next week. I'm looking forward to it!

-Jeffrey Socash