Along these same lines, you can ask questions such as those in Mazur's
"Peer Instruction" during the lecture, even if you do not use the full Peer
Instruction method, to find out the students' conceptual difficulties. If
you haven't seen these questions, they are multiple choice and usually do a
good job of eliciting students' misconceptions.
Michael Burns-Kaurin
Spelman College
Atlanta, GA
"Steven T.
Ratliff" To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
<STR@NWC.EDU> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: What to do now
"phys-l@lists
.nau.edu:
Forum for
Physics
Educators"
<PHYS-L
09/18/2001
02:07 PM
Please
respond to
"phys-l@lists
.nau.edu:
Forum for
Physics
Educators"
Some ideas:
Sometimes students are reluctant to ask questions. They might not know
what to ask, or they might be afraid of appearing to be stupid.
One approach is to rely more on other means. For example, you can give a
quiz (perhaps not counting towards a large part of their grade). When you
grade the quiz, you will see what areas they need help in. You can then
concentrate on those areas in your lecture.
Another idea is to hand out pieces of paper. At the end of the class give
the students a few minutes to write down any questions that they have.
Collect these papers. You can answer the questions at the start of the
next class.
Steven T. Ratliff
Professor of Physics
Northwestern College
3003 Snelling Ave. N.
St. Paul, MN 55113-1598
U. S. A.
Internet: stratliff@nwc.edu
Tina Fanetti <FanettT@QUEST.WITCC.CC.IA.US>
Sent by: "phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators" <PHYS-L
09/18/01 12:15 PM
Please respond to "phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators"
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Subject: What to do now
Hello all
And now for something completely different.
I was called into my supervisor's office yesterday. My physics students
think I am a bad teacher and accuse me of not answering questions etc etc.
I am like they don't ask questions. I ask them if they are getting it and
I get no response.
They just had their first test. They did horrible. This is a calc based
class and they are all going to be engineers at a much tougher school than
this.
I don't know what to do. I can't slow down anymore. I have to do
something.
I also have a problem relating to some of the foreign students. I would
like some advice regarding this too.
I had a long talk with my students today begging them to ask questions
telling them I can't help you if I don't know what you don't get. It
makes perfect sense to me and if you don't tell me that it doesnt' make
sense to you...I assume you got it.
Tina
Tina Fanetti
Physics Instructor
Western Iowa Technical Community College
4647 Stone Ave
Sioux City IA 51102
712-274-8733 ext 1429