Brian Shotwell
University of California, San Diego
Department of Physics

Physics 500, Fall 2018 (back)

Useful Links / Resources:

UCSD's Teaching + Learning Commons (TLC) This is the University-wide center for teaching and learning resources, housed primarily in the library.
1. The Engaged Teaching Hub (one of five hubs of the TLC) is focused on teaching methods / pedagogy. They're holding these workshops this quarter.

Demos offered by the Physics Department. Someone asked about possible demos -- here is a big collection of some. Email me if you're curious about any of these; some are more effective than others in teaching concepts.

Computer Simulations from the University of Colorado Department of Physics. These simulations are great and can be useful in grapically presenting some key ideas.

Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods. This well-known paper (over 5000 citations) gives some data motivating the shift towards active-learning techniques.

Announcements:

10/31: Information about the in-class presentation can be found below.
10/31: Even though the Excel / LaTeX assignments aren't due until Nov. 30th, you'll probably want to take a look at them before the class on Friday, November 9th. This is the class to ask questions on either assignment if it's not obvious how to do either one after 30 minutes.

Tentative Syllabus:

Week 1 (Oct. 5th): Intro to Active Teaching; Effective Discussion Questions
Week 2 (Oct. 12th): (Check-In with TAs); Problem-Solving
Week 3 (Oct. 19th): Labs (guests: Prof. Sharma, LTACs Alex / Ethan)
Week 4 (Oct. 26th): Ideas for Groupwork / managing a discussion session; presenting a mini-lecture on a topic (demos? simulations?)
Week 5 (Nov. 2nd): Student Presentations, part 1
Week 6 (Nov. 9th): Reflections on presentations. LaTeX and Excel skills [OPTIONAL DAY]
Week 7 (Nov. 16th): Grading / Creating a Rubric
Week 8 (Nov. 23rd): NO CLASS -- THANKSGIVING
Week 9 (Nov. 30th): Student Presentations, part 2A
Week 10 (Dec. 7th): Student Presentations, part 2B

Details about In-Class Presentation:

Please prepare a 10 minute teaching sample (either week 5, week 9, or week 10) for the topic given. The presentation could be any 10-minute slice of a 50-minute discussion session -- it could be content delivery or a summary, discussion/conceptual "clicker" questions, an example problem, or other active learning techniques. The presentation should involve some component whereby you're' engaging with students, even if only questions you ask them as you're going through an example problem.

The rest of the class will play the role of students who may ask questions that students would be expected to ask. You should ask a peer in the classroom to record the presentation for you to view afterwards (preferably on your phone if possible, but you might want to ask another person if they have plenty of space on theirs). This will help in the reflection you are asked to write. This reflection is due during finals week (see HW8).

Week 5 Presentations (by last name):
(A-K, room 2702) - Single-slit diffraction at the phys 2C level.
(L-R, room 2623) - Transverse matter waves (waves on strings in 1D) at phys 4B level.
(S-Z, room 5623) - Linear momentum at the phys 1A level.

(Mini) Homework Assignments:

HW1 (for Oct 5th): Create a discussion question to gauge students' conceptual understanding of the basics of a given topic. Topic depends on last name: Newton's 3rd Law (A-K), DC Circuits (L-R), and Wavefunctions (S-Z). Please write your discussion question on a paper to hand in.

HW2 (for Oct 12th): Evaluate a given sample mechanics problem (see pdf); rewrite it so that it is more instructive. Write on paper to hand in.

HW3 (for Oct 19th): Think about the worst experience you had in a lower-division lab. What about it made the experience so negative? How could things have been improved? Write / type out and print to hand in.

HW4 (for Oct 26th): Suppose you're TA'ing a class where the topic this week is Faraday's Law. Think about how you might organize a 50-minute discussion section (of 30-40 students) on this topic. How much "lecturing" do you want to do (including example problems and discussion questions)? What sorts of problems/questions do you want them to work on by themselves? What about in groups? You don't have to turn anything in for HW4; just be prepared to discuss.

HW5 (due 10am Nov 16): Rubric assignment. Submit responses here (Google Form). Results.

HW6 (due week 9, Nov 30): Excel assignment and Excel File with (fake) Names/PIDs.

HW7 (due week 9, Nov 30): LaTeX assignment.

HW8 (due finals week, Dec 14): Reflection on your presentation either during week 5, week 9, or week 10. It should be a 300-500 word summary of what you liked/disliked about your presentation/video and how it could have been improved. Please type this up and send me either a .tex, .doc, .txt, or .pdf of the reflection.

Brian ShotwellUniversity of California, San DiegoDepartment of Physics