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.