Re: [Phys-l] Re. Simultaneity

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>]

I suggest that you try engaging the students in a 1-on-1 format.  Until 
you find out what goes on in the student's head when you pose the problem, 
you will have no hope of reaching the student.  Remember that the 
effective part of teaching is not what you say, nor how you say it, but 
what the student gets.  I have reduced ideas to rhymes that the students 
memorize, but by golly, they come out unsolicited two years later.
				Regards,
					Jack



On Fri, 22 May 2009, Edmiston, Mike wrote:

> In case anyone is interested, I placed the description of an exam
> question on my web space that deals with space-time diagrams.  The
> question allows me to see in a hurry if the students understand what
> they're doing or not.
>
> The question asks them to complete a space-time diagram with two events,
> A and B, such that A occurs before B for one observer, but after B for
> the other observer.
>
> Although I have gone over this in class, I am sad to report that I
> generally find only 30% to 50% of my students can do this correctly on
> the final exam.  They either never caught on in the first place, or they
> forgot.  Either of these depresses me because generally I make a big
> deal out of reading times and positions correctly from a space-time
> diagram.
>
> I thank John Denker for pointing out the wording "contours of constant
> value" and also pointing out that this problem is not confined to
> space-time diagrams.  Indeed, most of my students in this class have
> already taken thermodynamics and are familiar with isothermal lines and
> adiabatic lines on PV diagrams.  The next time I teach this course I
> will put more emphasis on "contours of constant value," and I will point
> out other types of graphs or diagrams where this sort of thing happens.
> Hopefully I will have better success.
>
> Here is the link to what I typically get from students compared to what
> I expected to get when I ask the space-time diagram question mentioned
> above...
>
> www.bluffton.edu/~edmistonm/SpaceTimeDiagramQuestion.pdf
>
>
>
> Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
> Professor of Chemistry and Physics
> Bluffton University
> Bluffton, OH 45817
> (419)-358-3270
> edmiston@bluffton.edu
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