Week of 1/28/19

I had two students attend office hours this week one on Tuesday and one on Thursday both with questions regarding projectile motion. I found that pictures and relating the topics to what we did in previous chapters like vectors to be most useful. Though the students responded best to listing out the variables and picking the needed equation based on missing data and what the problem asked for. I anticipate students attending office hours next Tuesday, the day before their first examination.  

Week of 1.28.2019

This week I had one person stop by office hours. She worked on her Sapling and I helped when she had conceptual questions. One thing to keep in mind on the 3rd question in Module 16 was keeping track when a sphere changed charge in the series of steps that they give (they don't revert back to the original charge until the next scenario).

01.27 - 02.02

No one came to my office hours early Monday morning. And, during Wednesday's office hours, I was drinking hot chocolate and laying under my fuzzy blanket (classes were canceled).

But, today (Thursday), several students showed up. They all had specific (and different) questions, so it was a bit hard to manage everyone, especially because they came in at different times. I would like to work more collaboratively next time because I think everyone can benefit from others' questions.

1. A student who came to my office hour last Thursday was trying to understand how to draw the electric field for a semi-circular ring distribution with varying charge. I provided a comparison to a discrete system made up of several symmetric dipoles, explained fringing (and referenced her to the textbook's description), and provided some other examples of charge distributions to ensure she understood how to approach new problems like this. I find the whiteboard to be quite useful, but I need to remember to bring my own markers! 
2. Another student had a few questions related to the Sapling homework assignment on Gauss' Law. We solved a problem related to finding the electric field of an insulating cube using Gauss' law. It was challenging, and we made some mistakes as we worked through it together, but he assured me that struggling with it actually helped him understand the intricacies of the problem even better. We also worked on a problem related to the simplification of the electric field inside a conductor. Some understandable areas of confusion were surface area versus area and inside a conductor versus between conductors. Now that I have access to Sapling, I plan to at least take a look at the problems prior to my office hours. 
3. Another student had some conceptual questions about drawing the direction of electric fields, using positive test charges, and determining the force due to an electric field. I was able to make some abstract concepts more concrete by providing some comparisons to Physics 1 topics as well as explaining how I approach those sort of illustration problems.  
4. Another student from Prof. Busche's class had some questions as he worked through some book problems. These questions covered flux and Gauss' law and were more focused on concepts than math. Drawing clear pictures helped him understand what the questions were asking a little better.  

I also helped answer students' questions during Friday's exam.

Stay warm,
Cailyn

Week of January 28th

Due to the cancellation of classes on Tuesday, I only had one office hour on Monday, and no one attended.

Week of 1/27

This week, I had no students come in for office hours. This surprised me because there is an exam next week for Physics 0110. Hopefully, next week, some students will choose to come. Additionally, classes were cancelled on Wednesday so I (and everyone else) was unable to attend the lecture that should've occurred. I'm curious to see how this will affect our schedule in class.

Week of 1/21/19

Last week I had 2 people attend my office hours.  They came together and had questions about relative velocity and the angle of a problem.  I was able to help them with both, the first being more of a conceptual question, the latter being a small error in defining a variable.

Week of 1/21/19

I haven't really had anyone since my last post, but my class' first exam was yesterday, the 28th, so once that gets graded and returned to students, I will expect some more students to show up. I also spoke with the professor about this, and he said if attendance continues to stay low, he may re-implement the extra credit opportunity for going to office hours he had last semester, so I doubt it will be quiet for too much longer.

Last week, I had three people come to my office hours. They all attnded to go over some of their homework questions and I was able to help them with all of the questions. Old notes from the time I took the course we’re helpful to assist them.

Week of 1/21

This week nobody came to my office hours again. I was looking forward to helping some students as kinematics is definitely one of my favorite topics in 0110. Walking around in lecture and helping kids was a

Week of 1/21

I had a few students coming in asking me questions about their Sapling homework. I also had students asking me general questions about how to study for the exams and general study techniques to succeed in the class.

I helped my professor with setting up the demos before class and putting everything away after class.

Overall, this week was very successful.

Week of 1/21

I did not have any students attend my office hours this week but I was able to answer a couple students' questions about problems we did in class. They have a test coming up in two weeks so I hope to see more students coming to office hours as that gets closer.

Week of 1/21

Outside of my TA hours, I managed to help some friends in Physics 1 and Conceptual Physics classes by directing them to and helping them understand the three fundamental kinematics equations. I found it especially interesting how my one friend in the Conceptual Physics class was expected to understand certain physics concepts without having a certain level of critical mathematical explanation to make sense of some of the concepts. Math and physics are so deeply entwined, it hardly makes sense to gloss over the math in an attempt to comprehend the physics.

Week of 1/21

This week I was able to help one student with Gauss's Law and another student that came in asking about Physics 1 topics. Also, I created solutions for a series of worksheets that review all of the topics that will be on the first exam. I hope that these worksheets will help students solidify the concepts necessary for understanding electrostatics.

Week of 1/21

This week I was able to help one student clear up their confusion regarding Heat Engines. We also tackled how to approach the questions on homework assignments and in the textbook. I hope to see more people come for help as the semester advances and the topics become more complicated!

Week of 1/21

I had a lot of people come to my office hours again, which I assume is because my office hours are right before the homework is due. Many of them were repeats from last week, but there were some new faces as well. Like last time, it was mostly homework help, but the problems were much easier to explain this time around. I am starting to get regulars and people seem really receptive to my teaching, so I think I am off to a good start.

Week of 1/21

On Wednesday, I had three students that came to office hours for homework help.  We talked about position, velocity, and acceleration graphs.  On Friday, I had another student who had questions about LonCapa.

Week of 1/21

This week I had one student stop by for office hours who needed help with her sapling homework. I helped her gather the required information and formulas from her lecture notes so she knew how to efficiently solve sapling homework problems in the future.

Week of 1/21

This week two students had questions on their homework that they needed help with. One student just had an issue with formatting on Sapling Learning and the other student was struggling with calculating the field from point charges. I showed him how to properly use vector addition with point charges.

Week of 1/21

This week only one student stopped by during my office hours.  They had a couple questions pertaining to a course I wasn't supporting but I think I helped guide them to some conceptual conclusions about point charge systems.  As for my course, with an exam quickly approaching at the end of next week I am hopeful students will come to office hours to fine tune their understanding of the material before the test.

Week of the 1/21

I had two students attend office hours this week both on Tuesday. The first I was unable to assist with their physics two homework so I informed them about the physics resource room. The other student helped with position, velocity and acceleration graphs all with respect to time. We focused mainly on how to go from one graph to another and what those relationships look like algebraically. I think office hours attendance will increase soon for the first examinations are coming up.  

Week of 1/21/2019

Since there was no class on Monday, the first lecture of the week was Wednesday (and the professor didn't get very far in the slides). I didn't have any students come to my officer hours this week. Hopefully next week I will get people asking questions on Sapling once they have had more lectures.

01.20 - 01.26

It was a short week this week. Wednesday's lecture focused on integration of electric fields. Tomorrow, we will cover Gauss' law. They have their first exam next Friday (which will mainly cover Coulomb's Force, Electric Fields, and Gauss' Law) so I'm expecting some last-minute questions next week. 

During Wednesday's office hours, a student expressed that she was having trouble understanding how to solve problems related to integration of electric fields. We worked on a Sapling problem (which was more of an exercise on algebra than anything), and I provided some additional examples about how to set up the integral for various electric fields since that is where I found she was having the most difficulty. 

I also helped another student on Thursday. He had some questions on the Sapling homework. We were able to solve three problems together. They all dealt with integrating electric fields, and he got more comfortable working through each subsequent problem. He had one outstanding question at the end of office hours, so I followed up with him via email. 

Week of January 21

Since I did not have office hours Monday, I only had one person come to my office hours this week on Wednesday. She came wanting to review some concepts from class and then we took what she learned and applied it to her sapling homework on the topic of gases and kinetic theory.

Joshua Howe 1/22/19

Its only Week 3, but Monday of next week, the students I UTA will be having their first exam. I remember the start of this course actually being harder for me than the middle, so I feel bad for them. It think its just the combination of new Integration techniques mixed with the not straightforward conceptual side of charge. I had one student come in earlier to day just to discuss the study guide.

Week of 1/14

This week I had my first office hours on Monday. No one came to those which I wasn't very surprised by because the course hadn't really picked up yet, but I did have one student come to my office hour on Friday. He asked for help with a homework problem and I was able to point him in the right direction so he could figure out how to solve it. I was also able to walk around during class and help students with in-class problems.

Week of 1/14

This week I had my first office hours. The first day nobody showed up (as expected since it's so early on in the course). The second day I thought some would show up but nobody showed up this time either. In lecture however, I got to walk around and answer kids' questions for the in class activity.

Ben Ahlmark (Week 1/14/19)

This week I had two students come in, one on Tuesday another on Thursday.  The first was confused about an example from class concerning proportionality.  I explained that example and gave her two others.  The student who came on Thursday had run into a few problems with questions from the book concerning vectors.  I worked through these with her and we found that her biggest problem was not initially solving the problem symbolically.  We worked on this together.  I think I can improve my work by giving students more additional problems similar to the ones we worked on.

Week of 1/14

This week's office hours was off to a quick start for me. A student came in almost a minute or so after I had come in and set up shop in the little room. I ended up staying an extra hour, but this student and I worked through approaching a tricky Sapling problem from a number of ways and examining gaps between our thinking and the solution, as well as different ways of reaching the same answer. It was incredible to see how well this student had done the mathematical derivation needed to solve the problem and how the only gap in her answering the question correctly was a matter of variable assignment/conceptual understanding.

Week of 1/14

This week I had five people come to my office hours, all of whom needed help on the same homework assignment. I was able to help them all through their issues - many of them were simple algebra errors -  but I did run into difficulty on the final question. It took a few attempts, but I was able to guide the first student to the right answer on this question, which then made explaining it to the next students much easier. Other than that, I have been helping students work through example problems in lecture. Many of them are making mistakes that are easy to help correct, but they do not reach out for help. I need to work on being more observant and noticing the students who are struggling.

Week of January 14

So far, UTAing has been a great experience. I have attended lectures and held office hours, however so far nobody has come to my office hours. In the meantime, I have been working on a review sheet for all the concepts up to Gauss's Law. Hopefully as the term continues people will begin to show up to office hours.

Week of January 14

I had a really fun time being a UTA this week.  On Monday, no one showed up, but on Wednesday I had five students who came for homework help.  I found that writing on the whiteboard was pretty helpful so they could all see it at the same time.  The students were also able to help each other with another homework problem while I just checked their math on the side.  On Friday, I had another student attend office hours with homework questions.

Week of January 14th- Smiti Srinivasan

This was the first week of office hours but no one came to my office hours. I attended the lectures and helped the professor with setting up demos. I believe that more people will start coming to office hours next week onward once the course content starts to pick up and we get closer to the midterm.

Second Week

This week, I had one student come to ask about two homework questions. She figured the answer to the first question on her own wheb I asled her to explain how she approached the question. For the second one, we worked the question together. It would be most helpful for us if we got the questions beforehand, which we do now.

Ashwin Nair - Week of January 14th

This week, I had one student come in who was having difficulty with the homework. She had trouble with superposition problems and discrete electric field compositions. I was able to assist her in completing those homework problems and referred her to class notes and online resources. I expect more people to come in once the course gets more difficult.

Week of January 14th

With our section of physics II's first homework not due until this Sunday night, It came as no surprise to me that nobody showed up for my Tuesday office hours. After a tough lecture on Wednesday about the arbitration of a second charged particle in Coulomb's law, otherwise known as the electric field, I was eager to discus this abstract concept with students in my Thursday hours. One student came with a question along the lines of "What does all of the calculus mean in the derivation of a continuous system?".  To try and further their understanding we ran through a quick derivation of the E field sourced by a uniformly charged ring.  I focused on explaining how "chopping" the system up into many differential pieces of charge can be helpful in setting up an integral that when evaluated is the solution to the problem. The example we worked through also had some neat symmetry that made the problem easier by canceling both the y and z components of the E field. At the end of the session we related this method back to the assigned sapling homework and other more general systems.

Week of January 14th

This week I had a total of four people show up to my office hours. On Tuesday I had three students and we worked on Lon-Capa and other homework problems. To address issues with breaking up vectors into components we focused in on what the angle and the trig functions represent in each problem. I found that using diagrams to display vectors was the most helpful way to explain what the problem was asking. Also asked those who came to use the signs of the components in each vector to see which quadrant the vector should lie in as a sort of sanity check.
On Thursday I had one student come in a we reviewed adding and substracting vectors and looked at understanding position v. time graphs found on the Lon-Capa homework assignment. I foresee more students attending office hours as we get deeper into kinematics and start projectile motion.

Ong- Week of 1/14/2019

I didn't get any students until my last office hour of the week. We didn't really talk about Sapling questions, but discussed some conceptual concepts. Mostly, he just talked through the topics on his own and I only stepped in a few times to clarify any confusion or misunderstanding.

Hopefully, I will be able help people on their Sapling next week!

01.13 - 01.19

Office hours were quiet this week. During one of my office hours, I helped Ben answer a student's Physics 1 homework question about vectors and scalars. 

This week's lectures included the following topics: Coulomb's Law and Electric Fields. Next week, we will start with integration to find the electric field of continuous objects. As the material becomes more difficult, I'm hoping more people will come ask for help. 

Looking forward to the rest of the semester. 

Week of January 14

This week I had one person come to my office hours on Wednesday needing help on the last question of their sapling homework. I expect more people to come to my hours in the upcoming weeks as they learn new material and as it gets closer to their first midterm.

Joshua Howe 1/15/19

Well, after UTAing for Physics 1 for the Fall Semester, I have been invited back to UTA for Physics 2. I am still UTAing for Professor, Nero, which I am happy with; I know him, know how to UTA for him, and took his course for Physics 2, so I am familiar with most of the problems.

I am writing this during my first session of office hours. I helped one person earlier, but not actually for Nero's Physics; it will probably take a couple more lectures before I start seeing people. Tomorrow in lecture we are supposed to start using integration, so I am expecting a boost in attendance soon.

Ben Ahlmark 1/7/19

This was my first week of attending lecture.  My fellow TA and I walked around and assisted students during in class lecture questions.

No office hours were held because it was the first week.