Physics 2130
week 2 feedback
Pace of class
A little slower pace would be nice, but I understand that sometimes a slower pace is not an option.
When explaining concepts, can you please clarify concepts slowly?
I enjoy this class but it's starting to get more complicated but I hope that I can resolve my problems to be at the same pace as all the class
Hi folks… thanks for the feedback… really helpful.
I’ll work on going more slowly over the new material .. and give you opportunities to review these ideas in class, in the homework, through readings and help session. As for pace overall, I’ll work on this balance.
What worked well:
The relationship between current vs. voltage, and kinetic energy vs. frequency in the photoelectric effect! Making predictions before checking with the simulation was a fantastic way to learn it.
Excellent way of thinking about what we are doing… and good observation. Thanks. We’ll keep this up as much as possible.
I felt like I learned how the theory behind the photoelectric effect works both classically and quantumly.
Nice.. except is quantumly a word?
I felt very confident in what we learned this week. At first the concepts were confusing but very well explained so it is easy to understand.
Great to hear.
Challenges:
the fact that the higher frequency wave carries the same energy as the lower frequency wave is confusing, and I'm still fuzzy about it.
Okay .. we’re not done yet but just getting into this. The CLASSICAL perspective for waves (where we don’t yet deal with photons), the energy of a wave is determined by the strength of the e-field. It is only the quantum/photon view where frequency is associated with energy.
Photoelectric effect, have a pretty good grasp on it but not a complete understanding, still kind of blows my mind a little bit. But that's good, right?
Right on!!!!
I had difficulty understanding why the stopping potential for electrons for two different intensities of light were the same.
We’ll keep covering this.. but the stopping potential has to do with the energy that an electron is ejected with --- that energy comes from the energy of the photon .. not how many photons there are (we’ll see 1 photon leads to 1 electron).. we’ll chat more about this in class today!
The approaches were great, I'm still trying to grasp the photoelectric effect and how it doesn't follow ohms law. Also how the initial energy of the released electrons is the same.
Great to hear.. well keep up with it.
Differential equations on the homeworks, and exactly what they mean and how to use them. I am taking the class alongside this one, so that is expected.
Yep.. but this is also why we have help room.. we’ll revisit these ideas through the course too.
General Feedback
Class Participation:
How are participation questions on homework graded?
Great question.. Sorry these should not be called “participation” these are really reasoning and argumentation questions. They just wont’ be graded for content precision or correctness, rather for making a substantive argument.
Things are great so far, concerned about clicker cliques, having to talk to other people is intimidating.
Okay .. .we’ll chat about this in class today
Prep for class:
I believe the reading is a little too long and it seems to me we are not covering everything in class from the assigned readings.
Sorry one important one, READING is very OVERWHELMING and TEDIOUS. Sometimes we ran out of time and hardly catch up. How serious is this ( not catching up with reading)?
I’ll review this. However, the readings are designed as preparation for participation in class… to date you’ve had more reading because we’ve been doing review. Hopefully we’ll settle into a reasonable level. As for catching up .. the book is a tertiary level of support--- focus on lecture notes and homework first!
From my experience with other classes, screencasts are very helpful! They could be done, for example, for the simulation programs such as for the Photoelectric Effect and maybe any other upcoming topic.
Awesome idea… we’ll see if we can find resources to produce these.
Lecture / lecture activities:
I haven't taken more than a page of notes per lecture yet, but I feel like I learn so much and I can actually remember it!
Okay .. hope the prelecture notes are helping too… and note I have lecture notes posted.. and hopefully the homework is helping you solidify your understanding.
Yes! it will be better if you stress the most important materials in class. For example, tuesday's lecture was going fast and did not get a lot from it, but Thursday's, it was very awesome since you were explaining the concepts in details and going to simulation back and forth. Also I like when you summarize what we studied every about 10 min.
Great suggestions.
I have enjoyed the lectures so far and have found them very engaging.
I wish we had class 3 days a week or more time lecturing
Lecture has been interesting and engaging, which makes it easier to stay focused during a 75 minute class at 5pm. Clicker questions are useful, too.
Great to hear .. we have what we have for class time .. hope it’s working out okay. Do visit us during help room.
I feel like i understand whats going on before class and during my readings, but when I get out of class i feel completely lost. I don't know if i truly did not understand or if it is just taking a while to sink in.
How is the homework going? That’s the critical test. Come chat with me or join in help room, please.
I'd say it's fast simply from of the amount of information we need to learn on our own outside of class, but it does make class time seem more beneficial and actually more fun because of it. So that is a pro.
Not sure how I feel about learning material on my own that is not covered in lecture and often not even in the text book, I guess it helps in the long run though.
Good to hear.. yes I know this is different but designed to really support your learning.
Overall / Content:
I think the class goes pretty well.
All good so far!
Has been a fairly enjoyable class thus far.
Great to hear folks!
I still hope we can go into relativity and string theory.
Hmmm.. there might be some options at the end of class when we vote on applications.
Didn't have enough time to meet people for a clicker team.
We’ll provide some in class today
Not so far. Really excited to learn more
go physics
Go class!!
I really like that we go over general concepts and principles in the lectures, however I wish that there was more of a focus on the mathematical models that describe these principles as well. We are assigned a lot of reading and it can get laborious to understand all of the mathematics that are covered in the book without quite covering them in class.
Okay .. let me know how the HW starts shaping out in upcoming sections HW 4 and beyond.
The class seems to be becoming more challenging.
Yep…
I like the new name of the D2L page
Send me your suggestions!!
Keep up the awesome work! I am enjoying this course a lot!
You Too!! Great job class.
The class has been interesting so far and enjoyable
The class is going well so far! Lots of mind-bending concepts!!
Great to hear.
you didnt give candy to a guy in the last lecture. and thanks for posting the hw earlier prof!
zoinks! Let me know who!
I like the Hawaiian shirts
Those aloha shirts remind me of home.
So far, so good.
So far I am thoroughly enjoying the format.
Great to hear..
I really enjoy prof. Finklestein's enthusiasm during lecture, makes it entertaining.
Yep we’re a team; keep up the enthusiasm on your end.
It would be nice if the homework were due at 1 or 2 instead of noon so that I had time to make changes before turning it in (I have classes in the morning so I can only come for the last bit of help hours tuesday).
Great idea.. can you remind me to discuss in class and have the rest of the students weigh in?
Umm... I am not concerning about anything for now. I just planned to catch up with the material and try to understand phenomena of what happens to the ideas or experiments that explain themselves.
coolio
Great job so far, I think this is going to be a great semester.
Indeed it is already starting out that way!