Thursday - January 31, 2008

On Thursday, January 31, 2008, we took notes on wavefront and the Doppler Effect. Before we did that, we watched a four minute video on waves. It was quite interesting.

Wavefront is a characteristic of waves. It is defined as the locus of adjacent points, which are all in phase. (Quick refresher - waves are in phase if they have the same displacement from rest position and the same direction of motion.) An example of a wavefront is the crest of a water wave. There are also spherical wavefronts that result in a circular depiction of the waves.

The Doppler Effect occurs when there is a variation in the observed frequency when there is relative motion between a source and an observer. Note - the actual frequency does not change.
When a sound is approaching, a higher frequency is observed. When a sound is receding, a lower frequency is observed. In sound, a change in frequency is a change in pitch. In light, a change in frequency is a change is color.

At the conclusion of class, we received a homework assignment that included a variety of problems dealing with the characteristics of waves, which were discussed on Wednesday. We had about five minutes to work on this worksheet in class. It was quality.

I think that its obvious we should have had more review time in class, with a better discription of each unit. maybe if it was organized differently and broken down a little, I think that we would have a better understanding, and by this i dont mean for the teacher to stand in front of the class and talk the entire time, thats a prime exsample of how to lose the class attention. When I took the midterm I walked out feeling like I got a great grade but, clearly along with my fellow students we didnt do as well as we all thought and, im not a bad student, i studied hard like i do for every class, and i still did poorly. We need more time in class for us to ask questions and actually do the work. Not just have loads of homework every night along with a blog. its not helping. This isnt the only class that we're taking, im a senior and I have a full schedule

midterm feedback

Were you prepared?

-i felt that i recognized all the material on the midterm it was just that i had forgotten how to actually get the right answer.

How well did you think you did before you received your grade?

-after taking the exam i felt that i did not do well on the multiple choice and better on the part 2. i was hoping that i got a B and with the curve i did so it worked out.

What could you have done better?

-i could have studied alot more than i did

What could Mr. Wirth have done better?
- i think that we could have gone over all the equations that we needed to know whether they are on the reference tables or not.


What suggestions do you have for yourself and your classmates to help us all be more successful in the second semester?
-just keeping up with all the assignments and labs rather than putting them off until the last minute. also i need to start doing homework daily to understand things more thoroughly and so i wont be surprised when i see a problem tests, quizzes, and the regents.

Mid Term Reflection

The most obvious statement is WE SHOULD HAVE HAD MORE REVIEW TIME! simply giving us a couple packets and expecting us to absorb everything over a couple nights is rediculous. Not to mention the nice unit test two days before the end of classes. I dont know about everyone else but the last thing on my mind was a unit test two days before MID TERMS. Then the ONE single day of "review." I didnt attend the class but I could imagine most students were focusing on the unit test from the day before more than the review. So obviously I feel that i could have done much better on the midterm if we had more time to review as a class. As my 10 week grade reflects, im not exactly one to do too poorly on tests. I feel that the lack of preparation going into the midterm was a direct cause of so many poor grades.

I Spy?

The midterm was alright. I knew how to do almost all of the question but I lost some points by not doing some of the steps. I should have probably study more for the exam.

January 28

Today we began the wave unit. Most of the lesson came from a video we watched. The video explained waves as a mechanical disturbance in one place leading to a reaction in another. For example, tipping over the first domino will lead to a reaction in all of the others. There are many types of waves, such as sound and light. Also, we learned an equation that can be found in the reference tables (not on the back). The velocity is equal to the frequency of the wave times the wavelength.

Other than that, we looked at what we will study for the rest of the year, and most of the concepts are more advanced, like electrostatics, magnitism, modern physics, and DC circuits.

Im pretty sure this is how the scribe is suposed to do this, but forgive me if I am wrong.

I thought that the midterm was alright and that I just lost some stupid points in many places. For instance the arrows on the vector, I still dont understand why that is two points off. I did not really study so I was not expecting something high but I hoped for something a little higher than I got. I think getting rid of the three amigos in front will only help my learning.

Scribe - Tuesday 1/29

Today we got to see our midterms, the multiple choice and part 2 questions. We talked as a class about what we can do differently for the end of the year and what we thought were the hardest questions and concepts. For the last bit of class we took notes on waves. Here is a general outline:



I. Waves

a. disturbance through a material or space

1. ex: water wave, sound wave, light wave

2. one or more pulses or periodic

b. Longitudinal or tranverse or combined

c. Mechanical

1. requires a medium for transmission

2. transmitted by vibration of particle in medium

3. ex: sound, water

d. Non-mechanical

1. no medium required, transmitted through empty space

2. ex: any electromagnetic radiation

Midterm

Some questions on the midterm were really easy, others I knew what it was asking and I remembered a little about it but not enough to get the right answer (especially the trajectory questions). I guess I should have studied more. Overall I think it was a fair test and I liked how there was that question which was based on one of the labs. Biggest lesson learned: study trajectory.

I thought I did at least a little bit better on the midterm than I actually did. I felt more confident about part two of the test and felt that the multiple choice questions were way harder than I anticipated. You prepared us with enough study materials, but I think we should have prepared more in class. Physics isn't our only class so I didn't have a ton of time to go through each packet and try all types of problems. It would be better if we could take time in class before the Regents and do these more often. That's about it, but thank you for the study packets, that certainly helped some.

I could have prepared better for the midterm by studying more. The most difficult parts of the miderm were the trajectory questions.

Its a given that this past semester was pretty much a mess with the teacher changes and whatnot but that doesn't really give me an excuse to have done poorly on the midterm. I left the midterm feeling pretty good about it so when i got the grade back i was pretty schocked. I know its time consuming and not always easy to do but it probably would have been helpful to go over the main idea and the equations of everytopic we covered so far this year before we took the exam. The review packets helped to a certain degree but it would have been helpful to have more time to ask you questions and actually have you (mr. wirth) review with the whole class. Thats all i got.

Well after leaving the midterm I thought it was alright. It wasn't too bad but I thought I would get a decent grade. There was a few difficult ones though the one that comes to mind is the last question on the test that involved solving for v using v, g, and h. That one confused me. When I got my grade back I was dissappointed to find out my actual grade. Thank god for the curve though at least it boosted it up a bit. My grade still isn't good though. I suppose I'll have to do some a lot more review before the final.

I honestly thought i was prepared for this exam. I read through the packets and went in for review. But after the exam, I was pretty nervous about how I did, some of the problems really stumped me. Definitely could have done better but not extremely disappointed. Reviewing as a group more before the exam would have been helpful. (Hint for the final) As far as second semester goes, I think our class will do better focusing during class even with the many side conversations going on. Ask questions during class if you have them, helps out the rest of us.
-DH

Midterm

I should have actually studied...I might have pulled off even higher than an 89 then. Oh well. It was a learning experience, now I will study more for the final in the spring. Overall I thought it went pretty well though. I was able to figure out most of the problems from the reference table so that made it alright. Oh and the review packets looked very helpful. They probably helped a number of students.

I think the midterm was a bomb. We didn't spend any quality time in class reviewing, and honestly that's the only time most kids will review. Hopefully the curve will be huge so that both the students, parents and teachers are happy. We don't want anyone thinking we are dumb or have an ill equipt teacher. I think overall it was just a very difficult test and the fact that we've have three teachers and didn't spend good time reviewing all contributed to the lack of success shown in our grades.

Midterm Comments

So about the midterm... when I finished the exam, I thought I did a really good job. I thought some of the multiple choice questions were a little tricky, but in general it was pretty easy. When we got our grades back in class today, I was surprised because I thought I did better. I think it will help if we get to get our midterms back and look over what we got wrong. Also, I probably should have studied more for this exam, but since I had a good grade in class I did not spend much time studying for Physics as I did for my other more important classes. What will probably help everyone is if we do practice Regents multiple choice questions in class more often so we can get use to how the Regents people ask questions.