PasquiniPage

=__Dr. Pasquini's Physics Page__=

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Weekly Summaries

 * ==Week 18: Unit Test== ||
 * Day 1: Unit Test ||

Day 2: Spectroscopy Day 3: Quantum Revolution 1897-1920 Day 4: Review Waves Day 5: WeSee Project Day ||
 * ==Week 17: Quantum Revolution and Waves Test== ||
 * Day 1: WeSee Day

Day 2: **Snow Day** Day 3: Reflection and Diffraction Day 4: Refraction and Wave Effects with Light Demos Day 5: WeSee Project Day ||
 * ==Week 16: Waves== ||
 * Day 1: Reflection and Diffraction

Day 2: Wave propagation and the dispersion relationship Day 3: Superposition of waves Day 4: Superposition of waves + Interference (Beats) Day 5: WeSee Project Day ||
 * ==Week 15: Forces Wrapup and Unit Test== ||
 * Day 1: Slinky Lab


 * ==Week 14: Thanksgiving Week== ||
 * Day 1: WeSee Project Day ||

Day 2: Lab Assessment Day 3: Forces and Motion Review Day Day 4: Forces and Motion Unit Test Day 5: WeSee Project Day ||
 * ==Week 13: Forces Wrapup and Unit Test== ||
 * Day 1: The Electric Force and the Fundamental Forces

Day 2: Universal Gravitation Lab Day 3: Electroscope Lab Day 4: WeSee Project Day ||
 * ==Week 12: Universal Gravitation and the Electric Force== ||
 * Day 1: Finalizing Newton's Laws

Day 2: Day 3: Day 4: Friction Lab Day 5: WeSee Project Day || Day 2: 2D kinematics, projectiles. Introduction to WeSee project. Day 3: Projectile Motion Lab Day 4: Projectile Motion Lab Day 5: WeSee Project time. ||
 * ==Week 11: Newton's Laws== ||
 * Day 1:
 * ==Week 10: Kinematics and Accelerated motion== ||
 * Day 1: The kinematic equations and the acceleration due to gravity.

Day 2: Acceleration inquiry lab day 1. Day 3: Acceleration inquiry lab day 2 ||
 * ==Week 9: Kinematics and Accelerated motion== ||
 * Day 1: Describing human motion. Human motion ild and lab questions

Day 2: Conservation of energy and momentum problems. Day 3: Ballistic pendulm data collection Day 4: Concept map review and revisions; complete ballistic pendulum lab Day 5: Unit Test ||
 * ==Week 8: States of Matter, Kinetic Theory, General Conservation Laws & Unit Test== ||
 * Day 1: Discussion of calorimetry lab results. Conservation laws recap. Temperature of objects formative assessment

Day 2: Turning the dial FA Probe. Melting ice lab. Heating curves, latent heat and specific heat. Pass out Calorimetry Lab Day 3: Calorimetry Lab: day 1; specific heat of an unknown metal. Day 4: Calorimetry Lab: day 2; latent heat of fusion of parafin Day 5: Work day for calorimetry lab. ||
 * ==Week 7: Heat and Temperature, Calorimetry Lab== ||
 * Day 1: Mixing water and warming water formative assessment probes. Heat as a form of kinetic and electromagnetic energy. Mechanisms of heat transfer (convection, conduction, radiation). Pass out melting ice lab.

Day 2: Mass and spring lab. Wrap-up mechanical energy; KE, PEg, PEe, KEr. Day 3: Introduction to heat and energy. Review of kinetic theory and look at expansion of matter as associated with increasing temperature. Day 4: Mechanical equivalent of heat lab; connecting heat as a form of energy to temperature as a measure of kinetic energy. Reading assigned and reflection assigned. ||
 * ==Week 6: Conservation of Mechanical Energy and Roller Coaster Lab== ||
 * Day 1: Roller coaster lab continued. Focus on the definition of work as a force acting over a distance. Encourage students to use this to find the force of friction in the roller coaster and the force exerted by the chain. Rotational energy reading (flywheels). Pass out pre-lab for mass on a spring lab.

Day 2: Collisions lab continued. This lab turned out to be too long. There needs to be some way to limit the extent of this project. Introduction to energy, specifically kinetic energy and potential energy due to gravity. Day 3: Cart and ball on an incline lab. Questioning about why ball takes longer on incline to probe for rotational energy. Some students were ready for this. Day 4: Collision lab concluded with discussion of the ideas of conservation laws, systems, elastic and inelastic collisions. UVM visit takes out most of second block. Day 5: Roller coaster lab started. Most data collected in both classes. ||
 * ==Week 5: Collision Lab and Conservation of Mechanical Energy== ||
 * Day 1: Collisions lab continued. Extension for conservation of kinetic energy assigned.

Day 2: Nails in a Jar FA Probe. Demonstrations of motion on the cart track. Notes on definition of momentum. Discussion of clock lab. Day 3: Momentum and Impulse Lab data collection. Day 4: Discussion of momentum and impulse lab. Readings on systems; open and closed systems. What does it mean for mass? What does it mean for momentum? Day 5: Collisions Lab Start. Systems reflection assigned. A better introduction to the collisions and units and how to re-produce the collisions would be useful here. ||
 * ==Week 4: Conservation of Momentum & Mass== ||
 * Day 1: Burning paper FA Probe. Feynman conservation law reading.

Day 2: SHM lab and test review. Intro to composing lab documents on wikispaces. Assignment of reflection on major lab as a separate component of major lab. Day 3: SHM lab and test review. Look over concept maps. Day 4: Unit 1 Test. Finalize work on lab and report. Second participation assessment. ||
 * ==Week 3: Clock Lab & Unit Review== ||
 * Day 1: Begin work on SHM lab. Focus on Cycle of science and characterizing aspects of experiment. Reflection assigned: Concept map connecting the various ideas surrounding the scientific method: due Thursday

Day 2: Measuring speed lab data collection. Most groups complete 3/4 measurements. Some difficulty in understanding hoverpuck activity. Time given in video does not seem to be reasonable. Day 3: Discussion of measuring speed lab. Some problem solving techniques. Day 4: Density lab data collection. Most groups complete 4/5 samples during class. Day 5: "Hypothesis" FA probe and associated discussion. Review of cycle of science. Analysis of data from density lab using logger pro. Data is sufficient, but there seem to be some inaccuracies, particularly with ice. Intro to SHM lab and first weekly participation assessment. ||
 * ==Week 2: Scientific Method and First Labs== ||
 * Day 1: "Is it a Theory" FA probe and associated discussion. I want to return to this with the other aspects of scientific process (hypothesis, fact, law, etc.). * more info on this day is on my copy of the class reading.

Day 2: "Doing Science" FA probe and associated discussion (students well on the way to mastery). Calibration activity (some problems w/ratios, good discussion of error and standards). Large and small numbers activity, Powers of 10 video. Day 3: Wikispaces construction day. ||
 * ==Week 1== ||
 * Day 1: Introduced study of physics and provided details about the organization of class. Discussed student interest in physics (aprox. half career related), concerns about the class (workload, tests), and ideas for increasing engagement (relate to other fields, hands on activities).

Formulas: There should be some sort of formulary that students can turn to for doing calculations of different quantities. It should be customized for the class and include information about the units to be used. Reflections: The reflection assignments are infrequent and often dropped due to lack of time. It should be a more consistent part of the class. Groups: Having students select their own groups is leading to problems in many cases. This should be addressed, particularly for athletes on the same teams... they are unable to compensate for one another falling behind. Cycles of learning: Each unit is broken into 3 or 4 weeks, each with a theme. Each theme has a few demos, some readings, an introductory lab and a major lab. Students are broken into groups (differentiation by appropriate grouping?) and each take a theme. A first pass is done on each theme in the first week. The following Monday, students present their work to the class for comment (also by the teacher). Major errors are addressed and the themes are passed to a new group. This group repeats the work, this time addressing the comments and correcting any major errors. The third (and possible fourth) pass on each theme includes an extension. The example would be the energy unit where the themes are momentum, mechanical energy, and heat energy. In the final week of the unit, additional projects, tying all of the material together are used as a review and preparation for the unit test. Thanks- conversation with Eliza 10/4. Quizzes: There needs to be an interim assessment (a quiz) for each unit near the 2/3 point. That way students know what to prepare for the tests. This year, that may not be possible given all the other material that should be created. Labs: There needs to be less time spent collecting data and more time looking at and discussing data. How to make this happen? Important for the class' learning of the material. If they are answering the questions completely off base, how to help? Grading: I need to find a way to get grading turned around faster; the timeliness of feedback is critical to their success. If not grading, then at least comments need to be handled faster. At the start of the year, I was able to respond almost immediately to any post, but got hung up as the term progressed. How to get this back? How much time do I realistically need each day to tackle responding to each student? Expectations: In all classes, there need to be higher expectations for completing assignments in class and at home. There should probably also be better support with reminders for assignments. That seems to have fallen by the wayside as we progress through the class. Perhaps I can get all of the remaining assignments posted to the google calendar soon. WeSee: The first time around, this project had a hard time. There were no schedules posted anywhere, students were very slow to post anything to their webpages, preferring to work in isolation and apparently doing no work on the project on their own. There was a bit of difficulty in getting students paired up with mentors as well. I am also surprised how much this project takes away from class time. I think that the next time around, it would be much better to have a defined schedule and graded checkpoints along the way. Labs: Defined points for individual questions (rubrics) should be created at this point to make grading useful and consistent. ||
 * ==Overall Comments on Class== ||
 * Units: There needs to be more focus on the metric system and how measurements should be recorded. Students are not able to take the cues from the minor labs in working with the major labs

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