PPT Questions and to Do List

PPT To Do List

Course development......

Development sequence......

Sequence of material......

New material to add or write......

Overall......

Technical physics questions......

Text......

Style......

Content......

Specific Content Notes......

Teacher’s Manual......

Supplementary Material......

Miscellaneous Notes......

Summer......

Course development

Get the sequence of physics/math, and the pedagogy right
Improve assessment – kinesthetic, verbal, mathematical, pictorial
Refine the physics – add as needed, pare down where possible
Add in more physiology
Add in more reading and history, especially personal history of the famous people to make it interesting.

Do we want to put something ahead of acceleration to intro a squared function? Could do the activity we used in scaling with stacked cubes – teaches length, area, and volume, even gets into cubed. Some interesting graphing! Could be supplementary. Could be added as part of Center of Mass.

Introduction to student section?
Add symbology? Or (as usual) bring it up as appropriate. It might be good to have a reference section.
Have a semester project? First semester Rube Goldberg, second semester? Build something – engineering. Design an experiment (not create a demo). Do real, contributory science (how?). Do a paper on a physiological system described in physics terms and related to energy?
Do we want to use scientific notation?
If so, where do we introduce it?
If so, do we use x103 or e3? x 103 is conceptually easier than e3, but more of a pain to write.
Do we want to use significant digits?
If so, where and how, how much detail? Just that you can’t get more accuracy than you started with?
Displacement
I think we can do displacement, which we have so far avoided to reduce confusion. Introducing it earlier should lead to easier understanding of velocity and acceleration and their relationship to force.
matter, space, inertia, gravity, etc.
then relativity of location – 1 m from what? Establishes reference point. Comes before relativity of motion – who’s moving?
then motion - ∆x, (relative) linear. Don’t need 2-D or 3-D yet.
then force, Galileo thinkpieces
displacement sequence
location (x) on a line (0) to (1)
Displacement = ∆x
location (x,y) on plane (0,0) to (1,1)
v = ∆x/t
vav = ∆xtot/ttot
vinst = vi, vf, etc.
speed is a special case using just distance, s = d/t
sav = dtot/ttot
vinst = sinst = si, sf, etc.
a = ∆v/t
aav = ∆vtot/ttot
ainst = ai, af, etc.

Vectors
Are fields vectors? As opposed to vectors that initiate at just one point.
Does g refer just to gravitational acceleration on Earth, 9.8 m/s2? Or to gravitational acceleration anywhere? Is g Earth’s gravitational field, or any gravitational field?
Can a refer to a gravitational field? a can be a vector, ∆v/t, or F/m.
a can also be a scalar, m/s2.
Need to clarify for students the difference between acceleration due to a particular force and net acceleration, due to a sum of forces.

Check consistency everywhere!
Change the section headings and get rid of some? Like “Relevance.”
Edit everything for consistent style, voice, technical depth, etc.
Change titles for consistency in style, caps, matching file names.
Be consistent about putting the exercise question with the answer in the teacher’s section.
Decide on symbology and edit everything to match.

Many activities not complete. For example no Presentation notes, or no Reading.
Add equipment section to all activities, whether required or not.
Add equipment instructions as required.
Add pendulum timer somewhere.
Add physics facts?
Exercises
Create more exercises for some.
Give answers to odd-numbered exercises in back of student text?
Divide exercises into calculational and conceptual?
Should we label some sections as optional, like others do?
Go through Developers’ Notes at the beginning of each activity and deal with them. Need to delete Developers’ Notes section eventually, including revision table.
Edit mechanics activities per 2004-5’s notes (and other notes?).
Create more POEs.
Create more OEs.

Teacher’s manual?
Students should know basic Newtonian physics and how it shapes their everyday lives.
Students should be able to design and conduct an experiment, including hypothesizing, designing tests, and disseminating results.
Students should care about thinking scientifically and applying their knowledge to real situations, including caring for their own bodies.

Need to decide at what points to hand out the various support material – like graphing, finding patterns, solving problems, etc.
Course overview (materials required of students)
Safety
How to find patterns in data
How to graph
Formula worksheet (5-fold path worksheet? lab report outline?)
3-variable algebra with numbers, variables (unknowns), and units
How to solve physics problems.
Look at extremes/limits,
Table of physics quantities & units
Use D or  for density? Nothing else uses D.
Table of conversions?
Grading rubrics?
Tests & quizzes
Lab report rubric/ instructions?
Lab thoughts
Create a lesson (supplementary?) on creating relations like: obesity ~ junk food/exercise.

2005/03/28 By my figuring, we’re supposed to have 45 min  80 days/semester, 60 hours, of class. In fall semester, we actually had 71 days of class, due to testing, assemblies, fire drills, etc. That’s about 0.75 hr/class  72 classes = 54 hours of instruction. That’s only about seven 8 hour days! How much can you teach in that time?

PPT ToDo.doc110/30/18