III. Syllabus

How to Use This Class - Back

This physics course relies on a workshop approach to learning physics. There are three primary activities involved. Students spend approximately 50% of their time watching pre-taped lecture/demonstration sessions. Interspersed with these are lab activities and activities on the Physics Companion (PC) CD-ROM. The PC has been written by the teacher to allow students to learn physics by observing real events in the form of movies and animations. Students take data and analyze it just as they would in a real lab. Using the CD-ROM reduces the problems of the cost and difficulty of setting up physics lab equipment. The PC also does many things that no other medium can do. Sometimes it's like a textbook where everything moves. If a pendulum is supposed to swing, it swings.

We will do a small number of "live" labs in the first half of the course. Live labs are more the rule in the second part of the course. The equipment involved in studying these topics is less expensive, less prone to problem and easier to set up.

Students spend the rest of their class time working together on problem solving and taking tests. Tests are given as we go, rather than all at once at the end of a chapter. A typical test might take 5-10 minutes.

How does all this work? First of all there is no schedule. Instead, there is just a sequence of activities and a suggested pace. If your school starts on September 1, you start with Lesson 1 on that date. If you are out for snow on January 15, you just continue where you left off when the snow melts. Approximate times for each activity are provided in the agenda. Please try to keep on task. There is no "dead time" built into the schedule. If you have 20 minutes left in class and the next activity or lecture takes 30 minutes, just forge ahead. You may, however, want to back up a bit the next day. Also, time in class for homework is rarely provided.

What is the sequence of activities? If you visit the physics web site at www.dl.ket.org/physics you will find what looks like a high tech calculator pad. (See the Read Me First section for a snap shot.) The screen on this pad lists the activities for a certain lesson. The following discussion uses a mythical lesson 199 as an example.

 

AGENDA - Lesson 199 - Mythical Sample Lesson Lecture Ch2.1 - Introduction to Physics Course (45 minutes) (The TV icon indicates that this is a taped lecture.) PC section 1. Graphs - Who needs them (~15 minutes) Take Chapter 2 Test #2 (3 Questions) on the day after finishing Section 1. ANNOUNCEMENTS Try to stay close to the suggested times for activities. ASSIGNMENTS Study Chapter 2.1 Turn this in on the day you start Lesson 5: Math A01 Scientific Notation, Metric Prefixes (56 pts.) Math B01 Practice Type B Problems (25 pts.) A password is required to see either type of homework problem.

Here is how you would do this lesson. Suppose you are starting this lesson at the beginning of the class period today. Let's look at the agenda line by line.

1. Before class starts you would need to find the tape of Lecture 2.1. It should have been recorded on some previous morning during the 8:10-8:55 a.m. ET time slot for this class. (Note that this means that you do not watch these broadcasts live, even if you have your class during this time.) You will note that the lecture number appears at the lower left-hand corner of the screen most of the time. Lecture 2.1 should have 2.1 in this location. Students should watch this 45-minute tape.

   Some schools have had problems keeping track of tapes. Trying to watch a tape and then getting it back to the library to reuse for recording the next day's broadcast is a system doomed from the start. To help prevent this problem I am giving you a head start.

   You should have received a tape with these materials that contains all the lectures for the first chapter (Chapter 2). You will start the first day with the first lecture, and continue using this tape until it runs out. On August 21, the official start date of the class, you need to start taping every day on another tape. These broadcasts will not repeat the lectures from Chapter 2; instead they will start with Chapter 3. This way you will always be taping lectures for future use. You can record several lectures on one tape before you need to use it. I would suggest that you clearly label these tapes to prevent confusion later. (I have no idea how this would really work. I have about 50 tapes in my living room and none of them have labels that make any sense.)

   Notice that Lectures 2.1 & b were underlined above. This indicates that the underlined words are a link to something. If you click on these words the lesson screen will clear and be replaced with the graphics that I used in class for that lecture. This means that students can look back at the problems, etc., that were used during class. It can also be accessed by students at home; if a student misses class, he/she can use this feature to catch up.

2. After watching Lecture 2.1, students should immediately start on the Physics Companion lesson. There is a section of the PC called Graphing. Part of this section is called Graphs-Who needs them?. Students should take roughly 15 minutes to complete this assignment. Students should work on the CD-ROM in teams of 3 or fewer. Some student teams have chosen to take turns reading the text on the screen. (You have been sent a printed copy of the actual text of all the activities. You may want to make a copy for each team or even each student.)

   The PC activities are not just something that students read. They are very active lessons. There should be a lot of discussion among team members and sometimes among teams. Most questions are followed up with my suggested answers and extensions. Try to encourage students to answer these questions before they look at the electronic answers.

   So far we have needed 45 + 15 = 60 minutes for our activities. If you have 50-minute periods, you found that you had to interrupt the CD-ROM activity before it was completed. Students should just take up where they left off when they start back the next day. This works the same way if a lecture tape gets interrupted. Please try to avoid saying "we have just 20 minutes left and this tape is 30 minutes long, so let's wait until tomorrow to start it." A lot of time gets "lost" this way. Note again that a lesson does not correspond to a class period. We just have a sequence of activities which have been split into manageable units for convenience.

3. On the day after watching Lecture 2.1, students need to take Test 2.2. This test is printed out from a secure area on the physics web site, under Facilitator Login. You can use your printer to print as many copies as you have students. These are mainly multiple choice, etc. The key is provided along with the test in a seperate document.

   The process of printing tests is explained and demonstrated on the "Physics Facilitator Guide" videotape, but here is a quick synopsis of the process. If you log in (click Login and enter your password) you will see several buttons related to grading, etc. You will also see items such as:

   • Chapter 2 Test 1
   • Chapter 2 Test 1 Key

   If you click on these, the actual test or key will fill the screen. To print it, click the "Prepare for Printing" button. Click File (top left of the screen), and then Print Frame within the file menu. You will see a new window that lets you choose how many copies to print. When you are ready, click OK. Printing will start.

   Click the Back button to return you to the log in area. If you wait more than a few minutes to do this you will have to log in with your password again. The computer automatically logs you out after about 4 minutes. This is to prevent non-facilitators from finding your computer left in the test printing area. Always remember to Logout from the Facilitator Net before leaving the computer.

   ATTENTION!!! Here is something very important. If you are in Chapter 2 on your Agenda screen, you will only see documents related to that chapter in the login area. This is to keep you from having to wade through a year's worth of assignments to find the one you want. If you want to print out something about Chapter 6, you need to move the current lesson to a lesson in that chapter. You can step a lesson at a time using the "Next Lesson" and "Previous Lesson" buttons on the Agenda screen. You can also use the "Previous Work" button to move directly to any other lesson. When you get to a lesson in Chapter 6 click on "Set this as current lesson." Now when you log in, you will see materials related to Chapter 6.

4. Important announcements appear here.

5. This is a reading assignment. When the assignment is different for the old ('92 & '95) editions than for the new ('99) edition of the textbook, the old and new will be shown like this: Study Chapter 4.7/Study Chapter 4.8 where the left and right sides of the slash indicate the old and new books respectively.

6. In order to eliminate the use of dates for assignments, due "dates" are given relative to other activities. This assignment is due on the day that Lesson 5 starts. Students will need help getting used to this system.

7. MathA01 is an example of Type A homework. "Math" identifies this homework as being associated with the math chapter. "A" identifies it as Type A homework. "01" indicates that it is listed on the first day of the Math Chapter.

   The underline under MathA01 indicates that it is a link. If you click on this link a new document will appear. (You'll be asked for your password. Students can do this too.) It contains all the A assignments for the Math chapter. A copy of this needs to be printed out for each student at the start of the chapter. There will be no need to refer to the homework problems in the book. The are all printed out in this way. In the log in area you'll find a grading key for each of these sets of A Homework. I ask that you grade these assignments. (More details on this later.)

8. MathB01 is an example of Type B homework. It is quite different form Type A homework. Each student has individualized Type B homework in that one of the numerical values in each problem will differ from student to student. Thus each student is searching for a different answer to each question.

   A student can click on MathB01, provide his/her password, and then print out the assignment.

   The following is a new feature not discussed in the accompanying Facilitator Information Tape.

   Express printing of Type-B Problems

   As with Type-A homework, each student needs his/her own printout of each Type-B problem set to take home to work on. The big problem is in the printing. If each student must log in and print out his/her questions, it takes up too much class time. We have a somewhat automated way around this. Note that this can only be done by you. Students have no access to this feature. Here are the steps:

   1. Log in.
   2. Click on the Quizzes button. (I'm sorry that these homework assignments are called quizzes in this program.)
   3. From the drop down list, click on the name of a Type-B set that you will need to print - VecB01, etc.
   4. Click OK.
   5. Click the Print Preview Button. You'll see a generic version of the assignment appear.
   6. Click Students up in the top left-hand corner. The quiz for the first student will appear. The student's name is at the top.
   7. In the browser menus click Print or File/Print Frame. The homework will print.
   8. Click Next. You'll see the next student's quiz.
   9. Print it.
   10. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

   When a student has solved the problems she will enter her answers into a form after logging onto the Physics Web Site. The homework is immediately graded and the score is automatically entered into the grading program. The student is provided a listing of her correct and incorrect responses. You don't have to do anything.

   Although a due date is provided, a student can come back later and try again at any Type B problem. This should be particularly helpful for that student who's "just one point away from a B." This automatic grading can be done from any Internet-connected computer - at school, home, or anywhere at any time. All the student needs is her ID number and password.

   Since students will need to spend a short time entering their responses several times a week, it would be very helpful if all the computers used for this class are connected to the Internet.

   There are some other important issues related to these two types of homework problem. Please refer to the Facilitator Guide tape for more important information. I'll also provide more information as this process is finalized.

To help you and your students keep on top of things, you should print out the agenda page regularly. I would suggest posting it on the wall or even at each computer station. (Click anywhere in the lesson area of the screen and then go to the File menu of Netscape and click on Print Frame.) What works even better is the "Big Picture." Look at the top of the agenda screen on the image displayed in "Read Me First". The words "Previous Lesson" and "Next Lesson" are buttons that will take you to those lesson agendas. If you click on "Big Picture", you will find (by scrolling) that the current lesson and the next three all appear appended end to end. You can print this out if you like. There is never anything in the schedule that we need to hide from our students.

This no-schedule course also makes it easy to take the class on a block schedule, year around schedule, as a home school course, or any other perturbation of the traditional calendar. There is no special schedule for this class. Just keep the pace.

Copyright © 1996-2000, KET

Webmaster