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Re: [Phys-l] Any teaching tips



Hi-
I tink it is in Arons' book that students generally are unfamiliar with ratios. In teacing a calclus physics course to students the 2 quarters of calculus, I gave an initial problem the asked the studeents co find a "ratio"of two quantities. Many students took "rato" to mean "difference".
Ny strategy was to empnasize vocabulary from the beginning of the course, and, further, to introduce and continually emphasize the use of the dictionary. A couple of times I was profusely thanked for the latter.
Possible dialogue:
_______________________________________
Student: Could you do probiem 6? I just don't know where to start?
Me: What's the first word in the problem that you don't understand?
_________________________________________
Amazingly, there often is a first word that is not understood.
Moral: A consciecious teacher never gives a direct answer to a student's qustion.
Regards,
Jack

"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley




On Sat, 29 Jan 2011, Scott Orshan wrote:

Certain small mathematical difficulties can make it impossible to proceed.

Don't underestimate the simple confusion that results when students do
not recognize '/', the fraction bar, the division symbol, and the word
"per" as being equivalent notations for division. Not being able to do
simple fraction math with both numbers and variables will be a stumbling
point.

Because of our innate language ability to string symbols together to
form words, a phrase like "meters per second" or an expression "m/s"
might not be recognized as one quantity divided by another quantity.
Students taking algebra may not have been exposed to expressions or
equations with more than one unknown, or unknowns that are not 'x',
'y'', 'a', 'b' or 'c'. Units look a lot like variables. Use colored
pencils to distinguish numbers, variables, mathematical operators and
units. Write the units equation separately, below the quantities equation.

How many of your students do not distinguish between "squared" and
"times two"?

If the fractions and algebra basics aren't there, it will be hard to
proceed with a math based class.

Scott

On 1/27/2011 10:13 AM, phys-l-request@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu wrote:

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:05:51 -0800 (PST)
From: Rman Towndog<reginaldquinn2@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Phys-l] Any teaching tips
To:phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
Message-ID:<749106.55998.qm@web120211.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I'm teaching Physics (Algebra Based), we are learning about kinematics in 1-D.
I have students that have trouble listing knowns and unknowns. I tried to get
the students to learn the units (e.g. speed is m/s, etc), so they would know how
to do this step, but it's been largely unsuccessful. Any tips?




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