Selected Feedback Week 3.

How much is this extra credit worth?

(see the syllabus but only for more extensive questions (in the future))

The first week of class, you said that we would get a point if we answered as a group the same and it was right. However, what if you're group is divided. Do you just go with the popular concensus or do you answer indepently.

I will notify you when you have CONSENSUS questions.  For the time being your participation is all that counts. Eventually I’ll grade you on being correct.  And sometimes I’ll grade your entire group on being correct… For consensus questions you must come to all the same answer.

I attended the thursday help session and just wanted to say that I think it was run a lot more smoothly than they were last semester

The help sessions really help to make sure that concepts like the xerox machine get into my head.

I would just like to thank you for the help sessions.  I attended one this week and I found it very helpful.Thanks again

Awesome… spread the word

I was also wondering if it would be possible to have a homework session in the morning because I can't get to the afternoon sessions for any useful amount of time.

We’ll reevaluate when the help sessions are around week 4 or 5.

I am an electrician so this information will prove to be very useful in me work.  I have learned some of this in the past, so it is not all new info. But on the other hand, I is a new way of looking at it.  I have always looked at it from a practical perspective, now I can see it from a classroom perspective

I'm really glad you're overlapping material.  It seems like last semester in effort to cover everything we lacked adequate time to in-depthly cover key concepts.  So although power distribution is a repeat, I didn't understand it all in the first place so I'm glad we're reviewing

Yes… there are few (or perhaps no) things in life that you completely get the first time… But do keep me posted on the utility of overlapping material and whether or not it is interesting.

I would like it if you could go over how the lab is going to be run and what things we need to have done in order for us to complete the lab with success

Fair enough.  we’ll do more of a lab preview in the future

I was really confused on how to answer problem 5 with the red light and blue light and why the resistance differs so much. 

            I find photocopiers to be a little tricky. The homework question pertaining to the xerox copy coming out all black on the red sheet was confusing. I am a little confused about how they work in general but am particularly unclear about why the sheet would come out all black. I find the part about light turning an insulator in to a conductor to be very interesting but still do not understand the concept to the full extent.      

Hopefully the HW solutions have cleared this up, but come to help session  /office hours to clear this up.

What is the difference between orbitals and levels? The book says, "An electron in an atom can only orbit the atom's nucleus in one of the paths that quantum physics allow

Sigh… yeah, the book is trying to be helpful… Orbitals are particular energy levels of electrons around atoms.  Quantum mechanics says that only certain energy level are allowed (hence they are quantized into discrete units rather than continuously distributed).

            I thought the homework was a little too much essay and writing takes a long time.  Maybe 50-50 would be better next time.  I write my answers on printed out homework and then transfer them to the webpage, so that takes a long time to do when they're all essays.       

I hear you and will consider adapting.

in theory, can one 1.5 volt battery power the world for a fraction of time?   

Yup. Consider a 1.5 V batter which lasts say .1 Amp-hour.  Then you get P=IV (which is energy / time) multiplying by time you get an energy.  1.5V x .1Ampx3600 seconds  will give you to the total energy (in Joules)… not that much.. but for a very very very short amount of time.  How much energy does the world use per second?

I've noticed that we take quite some time to answer clicker questions. I feel that sometimes we don't get through material that we should cover because we're still locking in votes. Just a thought: last semester Prof. Cary let us have about 40 sec on short answers, 1-1.5 min for long answer questions and so on. I remember last week when we took extra time to let 2-3 people click in answers.

Neat idea… maybe we’ll try that.

I thought that the homework this week was a little too heavily weighted towards the essay questions... at least compared to last semester. ARe we to expect HW similar to this or is it just because of the material we are covering this section?

I strongly value the essays, but understand that ya’ll are getting weary of them… we’ll find a happy medium (at some point).