Week of 2/20

This week was very busy, since the exam is coming up on Monday. My hours were swamped on both Tuesday and Thursday, but I helped everyone who came to the best of my ability. There were a mixture of exam-prep related questions, homework questions, and a few people who told me outright they were only there to get extra credit. Hopefully everyone is feeling well prepared for the exam.

Week of 2/20

Many students came in with questions about complex circuits as well as magnetic fields. Many students had relatively simple questions that, once I helped them with it, they were able to solve problems much more easily.

Week of February 20th

I had one person from 0174 come to my office hours they struggled with a couple problems involving a spring block system and at what point the block had its maximum velocity and a cannon firing inside of a freight car and the distance it moved. I helped him work through these problems so hopefully he could do them again if he needed to.

Week of February 20

Two students came to my office hours this week. They had questions regarding 2 of the homework problems. The questions were regarding energy equivalence.

Week of Feb. 20th

I did not have any people come to my office hours this week. On Tuesday will be the second test in Dr. Liu's class. I hopefully will get some students on Monday. I think this test will be difficult, because there are a few varying topics (ex. electric potential, circuits, electric forces). However, I think doing the homework problems will be very good practice for the test. This is the best advice I have given to students, because these questions encompass the whole range of question that can be asked on the test. I doubt I will get anyone on Wednesday or Thursday after the test. 

Week of Feb 20

This week no one came to my office hours.

Week of February 20th

Tom Reynolds
Physics 175 MWF 8:00
Dr. Mueller

This week I had a lot of students come every day, as I predicted last week.  They all were coming to get in some last minute questions before the tests and to make sure they got the extra credit for going to office hours. There were also some students who were there from Dr. Mueller's class who weren't getting extra credit and just genuinely were having trouble with the homework.  I had to split my attention between all 8 or 10 people who were there.  I tried to take them in the order they got there and answer as many related questions at once if possible.  Then some people would leave and I would go around again helping the people in a similar order.  It seemed to work well and be the fairest way to divide my time.  It was a bit tricky because I had to keep switching from topic to topic and each student expected me to already know what was going on in his/her specific class.  Next week should slow down a lot since the tests will be over.

Week of February 20th

A lot of students came in on Thursday asking about circuit analysis and magnetic force. They seemed to have a better understanding of the material after working through practice problems.

Week of Feb 20

There were many students who came in this week (the most of any week so far) mostly asking for help with homework or just to study for the test on Monday. A majority of the questions were on the loop rule and the right hand rule. I think there were so many people not only because there is a test on Monday, but also because this was the last week they could earn extra credit by coming to office hours.

Week of February 20th

I had no visitors during office hours this week, but hopefully there will be more students after spring break as it gets closer to the exams

Feb 20-24

Attendance was overall pretty average this week, with only 4-5 people coming through to get help. A little surprising since there's an exam on Monday. Almost everyone that came in just needed help with a certain homework problem about a ball falling into a tube supported by bolts, which was admittedly super difficult. Other than that, office hours were largely uneventful. More to come

Week of February 20

A lot of people were coming to office hours this week, especially with exams next week. Most people came with homework questions, and I saw one problem in particular multiple times. It involved Kirchhoff's rules, and solving a system of linear equations. I also got a few questions to clarify concepts involving complex circuits.

Week of February 20th

This week, several students attended my Tuesday office hours for help with solving the book problems and the homework problems.  Problem 1 gave me some trouble, but another UTA who was present at the time was able to assist.  At my Friday office hour, I again helped several students with homework.  Problem 3 also posed some difficulties, and I again asked for assistance from another UTA.  Overall, for the problems I felt confident in solving and explaining, it seemed the students grasped the concepts better and understood how to solve problems of several different natures after reviewing a few.  For the other problems, the assistance from the other UTAs filled in the gaps.

Week of February 20th

I did not have any students come to my office hours this week. The homework this week was rather straightforward so this was not surprising.

Joe Musiol
Broccio MWF 12-12:50PM

Week 7

This week no students from my class came to office hours.

Week of February 20

Can't comment on anything, no students in my office hours this week

Feb 20-24

On Monday, I assisted two students with the Lon Capa homework for Dr. Clark's class. On Thursday, about 6 students from physics algebra based came in.  They all had very similar issues with their homework.

week of 2/23

this week i did not get student until thursday, and there are around 5 people asking about homework, some question is really require thinking, and I lead them to approach question, it turns out not bad, some people actually get it. but some still need more time, i told them not just remember formulas, but actually understand and can kind of visual or reasonalize them. good luck in exam 2 next monday!

Week of February 13th

I had one student come to my office hours this week. She had questions from the homework that including finding total resistance in a circuit. She particularly was confused about distinguishing between resistors in series and parallel. I walked her through a couple examples from lecture and we reviewed how current flows through a circuit. I pointed out that resistors in series have the same current whereas resistors in parallel have the same voltage, and determining this does not depend on the actually geometry of the circuit. After going through a few examples she was able to work through the homework problems on her own.

Joseph Musiol
Broccio MWF 12:00-12:50PM

Week of 2/13

I had 2 students show up for my office hours this week. As usual, they were from Physics 1 and had questions from the homework material. The homework material focused on uniform circular motion and concepts of energy conservation. I'm guessing the homework for this week wasn't as demanding for students as this has been the lowest number of students I've had show up for office hours. However, the few students who showed up, only had a few questions and once they got the concept behind them, they were able to figure out how to go about the questions themselves.

Week of 2/13

Tom Reynolds
Physics 175
Dr. Mueller MWF 8:00

This week 2 students came to my office hours.  They were asking questions about circuits and Kirchoff's laws.  I showed them how to approach the problems and get all the information they would need to solve them.  I could see that they hadn't had linear algebra yet so I tried to give them some tips on how to solve systems of equations too.  There is already another exam coming up so I should see a small increase in the number of students next week.

Week 6

This week I actually had a student from my class come to office hours. We worked on circular motion problems and I showed strategies for approaching a problem. I was able to help explain centripetal force and clarify things the student didn't quite understand.

Week of 2/13

This week one student came to my office hours for help on the book problems. We went over the questions he had.

Week of Feb 13

One student came in for help with a problem, but other than that, nobody came in.

Week of 2/13

I did not have any students during my office hours this week. I think with the test being on February 28th I will have students come into my office hours. Right now students are learning magnetic field and magnetic forces. One of the things that I had the biggest problem with when I was learning this subject was conceptualizing all of the different scenarios for magnetic fields. It can be difficult to translate the movement of electrons within a 2-D picture to a 3-D magnetic field. Once students are able to picture the direction of the movement of electrons for each scenario, then it is easier to learn the equations. Another problem students have is using the right hand rules. Depending on the situation students need to be able to understand what each part of the hand represents. This takes practice before the test. In addition, it is important to understand how situations change based on whether an electron or proton is in the magnetic field. 

Week of February 13

A lot of students came to my office hours this week, especially on Monday. Most people had questions about specific homework questions, and multiple people asked about the same problem, which involved a grounded complex circut. There is another exam next week so I expect to get a lot of questions in the coming week.

Week of February 13th

No students came to my office hours this week. Hopefully more students will come next week.

Week of February 13

I had one student come to office hours this week. They had needed help with a work problem with non-conservative forces.

Week of 2/13

No students showed up to my office hours this week. Since there was an exam recently I expected this. Students will likely start to show up more frequently towards the next exam.

Week of February 13th

Can't comment on anything, no one at office hours this week.

Week of February 13th

Three students attended my Tuesday office hours.  Two of these students needed help in solving the Expert TA homework problems, while the other wanted clarification on a multiple choice question from Exam 1.  Two students attended my office hour on Friday.  One student wanted to conceptually work through problems 6 and 7 from the Expert TA homework, while the other asked for assistance in setting up the Chapter 4 and 5 book problems.  Overall, after working with each student individually, all seemed to have a better understanding of the concepts and problem-solving strategies necessary to work out the questions.

Feb 13-Feb17

This week I had one student on Monday and helped him with his online lon-capa homework.  On Thursday, I helped the same student with more of the online Lon-capa homework for Dr. Clark.  He seems to be understanding the concepts.  I also helped two other students (algebra based) work on their homework that was on centripetal acceleration and work.

Week of Feb 6

This week no student came to my office hours.

Week of 2/13

Office hours were pretty quiet this week. I answered a few questions about the homework on circuits.

Week of Feb 13

2 people came to office hours this week. The first person came in with a tough question and I tried to the best of my ability to help them. The second person had a couple of circuit homework problems that I helped them with.

2/16

this week I only had one student, and within the only 10 minutes remaining for my office hour, so i only help her out with one homework problem, other than that, there is nothing, no people came to my wed and thurs session.

Feb 6-10

Not many students were in this week. Only the usual few came in to do homework, which has become a routine thing. Other than that, no real major updates. I think I'm becoming more adept at explaining things clearly, and I look forward to improving this further

Week of 2/6

Tom Reynolds
Physics 175
Dr. Mueller MWF

This week I had three students come to my office.  One student came on Tuesday asking about a mistake in his work.  He really just checked it in front of me and found his own mistake. I then just asked him some questions about capacitance and cleared up a little misunderstandings he had.  Dr. Frolov is giving extra credit for seeing the UTAs so he asked me to sign that he was here.  On Thursday two students came asking for help finding equivalent capacitance.  I answered their questions and then they asked about the coming topics in physics.

Week of Feb 6

This was a slow week, I assume because of the recent test. However, some students did come with individual homework questions, including one student who seemed particularly confused about currents.

Week of February 6th

I had 2 students from Physics 1 show up for my office hours and a student from Astronomy as I was the only TA in the room at the time. I was able to assist the students with their homework from the week before and just general questions from class lecture material. I however wasn't much help to the Astronomy student because I've never taken an astronomy class. The students from Physics 1 that showed up were familiar faces so it was no problem working with them as I believe we are now used to each other.

Week 5

No students came to my office hours this week.

Week of February 6th

This week I did not have anyone come to my office hours. Hopefully, I get some more people this week. Right now students are learning about circuits. I anticipate that students will be asking questions on the differences between circuits in series and parallel. It takes some practice before students are able to reduce circuits down. In addition, it takes a bit of time to understand the differences between the voltage and resistance equations for series vs. parallel circuits. In general, it is also important to understand that for circuits you need to able to manipulate the equations based on the situation. 

Week of February 6

I had two students come to my office ours this week. They had questions on force problems. I showed them how what they learned with vectors can help them set up and solve problems relating to force and Newton's second law.

Week of February 6

Only a couple students came to my office hours this week, because there was an exam last week. They had some questions about specific homework questions, so I helped them work through the problems. Most of the questions involved dielectric.

Week of February 6th

This week I had 1 student come for office hours. They had questions on homework with forces, and seemed to have trouble figuring out where to start the problem. I worked on helping them create accurate free body diagrams and then translating that to equations for the net force in the x and y direction. After a few problems they seemed to improve a lot by going through the steps carefully instead of guessing what should be done.

Week of February 6th

I had one student come into my office hours this week. We transitioned into electric currents and circuits this week and the material wasn't too challenging, so the low number of students wasn't a surprise. The student who came to my office hours just had a quick question from the homework about finding distance between capacitor ends, and had trouble converting cm^2 to m^2. This was a pretty quick visit as I explained she needed to divide the area by 100 twice since the units are squared and this gave her the correct answer.

Joe Musiol
Broccio MWF 12:00-12:50

I helped one student with physics 1 homework. She was struggling with force diagrams and especially frictional force. I helped her work through the problem until she understood it conceptually and then she was able to figure out the answer by herself.

Week of February 6th

Cant comment on anything, no one at office hours this week.

Week of February 6th

One student attended my Tuesday office hours.  The student had completed their homework and wanted to review the processes behind solving the problems to increase their understanding of the concepts used.  The same student was the only one to attend my Friday office hour, where we again went over the concepts behind the Newton's law problems seen in the homework.  The student seemed to understand the concepts more solidly as the week progressed and was quicker to explain and re-solve the problems.

Week of Feb 6

On Monday I had two students from Dr. Clark's PHYS 0174 class.  Both students had questions on previous exams that I worked through with them.  On Thursday, I helped two students on their online homework for PHYS 0110.  Their homework was on forces with components and the frictional force.

week of 2/9

this week, I only got one student who came in for help, and that is literally in the remaining 10 mins, so i stayed extra 10 mins. i think because people just got there exam back this week, and maybe, just trying to relax. Anyway, based on the exam average, i will say they did well! keep it up!

Week of February 6th

One person came to office hours this week needing help with an energy density homework problem. It was non trivial and required an integral but I was able to help him set it up and solve it.

Week of 2/6

Office hours were pretty quiet this week, probably because the first exam was last week. There were just a few questions about homework problems and the like on Tuesday. No one came to my Thursday hours.

Week of Jan 30

I helped quite a few kids study before the midterm, many had specific questions dealing with homework, but some kids I was able to help with more general concepts about charge distribution and electric flux. They seemed to be able to solve problems much more quickly after I helped them a bit.

Week of Jan 30

This week no student came to my office hours.

Week of January 30

Tom Reynolds
Physics 175
Dr. Mueller MWF

I had one student come to my office hours on Tuesday, none on Thursday and one on Friday.  I was surprised because the exams were this week in most classes so I expected more students asking last minute questions. The one student who did come was from another class. I was also surprised by the student on Friday because usually no one comes after the exam.  He was from my section and had questions about the homework and wanted to talk about the exam he just took.

Week of January 30th

I was able to help someone with their 0175 homework early in the week. They did not understand how a charge behaves inside of a conductor and using gauss' law with was a large portion of the homework. However no one came from my 0174 class.

Week of January 30th

About 4 students showed up to my office hours this week. They had questions from the Physics 1 homework (mostly on forces). As usual, they only needed to clear the concepts and understand what the question was asking for; once they got that, solving the questions was straightforward.

Week of January 30th

I didn't have anyone at my office hours this week, but I helped some people outside of office hours. All of the questions related to the test. One of the big questions were about Carnot engines and heat machines. People were confused about the differences between refrigeration and a heat engine. Other questions I had was the difference between electric potential and electric potential energy. This was important to explain, especially with regards to voltage. 

Week of January 30th

I had four students come into my office hours on Friday, it was a mix of new and recurring students They all had similar questions about this weeks homework. In particular they had trouble finding the speed of an electron between two plates, and I directed them back to Physics 1 concepts and showed them that they needed to use a constant acceleration equation (Vf^2 = Vi^2 + 2ad) to help find the electrons speed. We were able to incorporate these concepts and use the constant acceleration equation as an intermediate for both parts of the problem.

Joe Musiol
Broccio MWF 12-12:00

Week of January 23rd

I had one student come into my office hours on Thursday. She had a question on the homework. She set up the question properly but failed to convert to correct units (grams instead of kilograms), which threw off her final answer.

I had another student come into my office hours on Friday, and she had trouble applying the electric force equation to multiple chargers. We looked at an example from the homework, and I told her that we need to use the F = kQ1Q2/r^2 equation as normal, and use trigonometry to take into account for the angle. With a little trig refresher, we were able to work through the X-direction together and she was able to do the Y-direction on her own.

Joe Musiol
Broccio MWF 12-12:50

Week 4

This week I helped two students with physics 2 material. No students from my class came to my office hours. I just helped explain Gaussian surfaces and flux.

Week of January 30th

2 people came in for help. They mostly wanted practice and help understanding concepts rather than help with homework. One person wanted help with capacitors and the other with electric fields for his upcoming test.

Week of Jan 30

I had no students stop by my office hours this week.

Week of January 30th

No one attended my Tuesday office hours, likely due to the exam occurring the day prior.  At my Friday office hour, one student came in for help with problems involving /Newton's second law, as well as for conceptual help in understanding Newton's third law.  After some clarification, the student seemed to grasp the concepts quickly.

Week of Jan 30

A steady stream of people came to office hours this week. Most people came with specific questions about the homework, and I saw one particular problem involving Gauss's Law with a cylinder shell a lot. The first exam was this week, so I got a lot of last minute questions to clarify concepts as well.

Week of 1/30

No one came to my office hours this week, which was surprising since it is the week before the exam. Hopefully there will be more people next week after the exam is graded.

Week of 1/30

I had one student show up to my office hours with some confusion on static friction. He did not understand how there was a maximum static friction, so I explained to him how static friction works.

Week of 1/30

Office hours were pretty quiet this week, as you would expect right after an exam. Just one person came in with homework questions that were pretty easily clarified.

Week 1/30-2/3

On Monday I had one student come to my office hours. He was confused on a few homework problems from Dr. Clark's physics 0174 class.  I was able to assist him and guide him on the right path to the solution. He seemed to have a better understanding after I clarified a few things for him.  Today (Thursday), I assisted one student on her homework for physics 0110. I cleared up concerns she had with free body diagrams and the questions she had on her homework.

week of 2/2

This week, is their first exam week! I ask few of the student how did they feel, some feel awful because they were anxious during exam, and just not in a good condition when doing it. but others said it is okay, easier than they thought, compare to homework and chapter questions in textbook.
besides, there still have people come in ask homework question for this week. the frequency ask question is about tension.

Jan 30 - Feb 3

Not surprisingly, almost no one wanted to come to study hours the day after their exam. Out of my three hours, I had 1 visitor - the same girl that comes every week to do her homework. Overall uneventful. Yep that's about it

Week of January 30th

I had one student come in on Thursday last week. They were taking Dr. Broccio's class, but they had some general questions. I also had questions outside of office hours. A lot of the questions were about Carnot engines and refrigeration. I think students had difficulty understanding how the equations change between the two. I directed them to the pictures in the book that showed that the differences between the two which was helpful. There were also a few questions about how to manipulate the gas equations. I always found that the best way to get better at this is to do problems in the back of the book. Another helpful tip is to write out the information that you are given and think about which equations can be used.