Welcome to Physics 102
Useful links
- Official course page
- Discussion boards
- Some homework solutions
- Some recitation solutions
- Quiz solutions
- Official worked examples and notes
How recitation will work
At the beginning of recitation, you hand in any homework due that week (none due for the first week) listed in the syllabus under HWn.
Then we review several of the problems listed under R. In order to get the most out of recitation, you should attempt the R problems before recitation, so you get a feeling for what areas you have difficulty with and are prepared with relevant questions.
After the class period is over, I will take your homeworks home and grade them. There are three homework questions each week, and each question is worth one point (0 for no or irrelevant work, 1/2 for partial work, and 1 for correct and complete work). They will be returned the week after they are collected.
Help!
If there is a topic that you find confusing, you have several possible approaches to resolving it.
- Reread the relevant sections of the text.
- Ask in recitation
- Come to my (or another TA's) office hours in Disque 915 (Wednesday 10am to Noon)
- email me
- Post your question on the discussion board
- Ask your classmates
- Search the internet.
For any of these approaches, you need to get a handle on what your
problem is.
For example:
"Trevor, I don't understand vector addition."
will prompt:
"What don't you understand about it?"
Similarly, posts to the discussion board like:
"What's up with projectile motion?"
will probably not get very many or informative responses.
The best way to pinpoint your misunderstanding is to find a problem in the back of the relevant chapter that you can't solve, and go through it until you get stuck. Then post your attempt to the discussion board (or ask your classmates, or come to office hours, ...) explaining what you did and why, and hopefully we'll be able to help you out.
Suggestions
If something about the course seems silly or useless, or you have an idea for making it better, post your thoughts to the discussion board or send me an email. I might not be able to do anything about it, but it will have a better chance of being addressed than if you keep it a secret :p.