Use of smartphones in experimental physics...

Diffraction Experiments with a Smart Cart

The Physics Teacher 59, 272 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1119/10.0004155

Writes: The use of smartphones in experimental physics is by now widely accepted and documented.1–5

I included one of the smartphone lab using the camera to find the focal length of the phone's camera lens. 

1.M. Monteiro, C. Stari, C. Cabeza, and A. Marti, “The polarization of light and Malus’ law using smartphones,” Phys. Teach. 55, 264 (May 2017). https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4981030, Google ScholarScitation, ISI

2.A. Shakur and J. Kraft, “Measurement of Coriolis acceleration with a smartphone,” Phys. Teach. 54, 288 (May 2016). https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4947157, Google ScholarScitation, ISI

3.Martín Monteiro, Cecilia Cabeza, Arturo C. Marti, Patrik Vogt, and Jochen Kuhn, “Angular velocity and centripetal acceleration relationship,” Phys. Teach. 52, 312 (May 2014). https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4872422, Google ScholarScitation, ISI

4.Martín Monteiro, Cecilia Cabeza, and Arturo C. Marti, “Rotational energy in a physical pendulum,” Phys. Teach. 52, 180 (March 2014). https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4865529, Google ScholarScitation, ISI

5.A. Shakur and T. Sinatra, “Angular momentum,” Phys. Teach. 51, 564 (Dec. 2013). https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4830076, Google ScholarScitation, ISI

Common Student Mistakes in Lab Report

One of the TA duties of graduate students is to instruct in Lab and grade the lab reports. The report writing aspect of lab is very useful skill, which students can learn and also find it useful later in their career.

Here is a list of common mistakes the students make in the lab report (in no particular order):

• Use the wrong date (often use the date they do write-up rather than the date of the lab)
• Forget their lab partners last/name
• Wrong format for name, lab, etc
• Introduce the lab rather than simply state their objective
• Forget to define the equation variable in the theory
• Forget to relate theory to experiment
• Forget to put units (or wrong units)
• Not state general equations
• Error not 1 sig fig or rounded down
• Value corresponding to error has more decimal places than the decimal place of the error
• Forget to put title on the graph or have x vs y instead of y vs x
• max/min lines not encompass all of the points and their error
• Not labeling the y-intercepts and/or the slopes (or labeling incorrectly)
• Majority of the graph space left unused
• Use data points instead of graph points to find the slope
• Forget to compare equation of a line with theory equation
• Not restate results to prove statements in discussion and conclusion
• Use human error such as "I may have calculated wrong" or "human reaction time" in the sources of error.

Would you like to add that you have encountered?

Adopted from
http://www.unbc.ca/assets/physics/labs/phys_labs_common_mistakes.pdf

>

What do Teachers Make?

They make the difference!

Two videos:


This one is very strong:

Miss-pronounced Names and Excuses

http://bit.ly/j5WYh7
While doing the Teaching Assistantship (TA) duties, I always advertised my name.

"My Name is this and you can Google me!" and I wrote them with big letters on the corner of the board. Corner because it will stay till the end of the class, just in case. And I always encouraged them to call me by name... instead of "excuse me!".

I also gave them semester specific Email address such as "Email+Fall2020@gmail.com". That way I could filter the Emails according to the semesters/courses.

I always try to relate the name of the students with their faces. Sometimes I mis-pronounce the names of the students. It is a weird situation, you can read it from their face, but I would tell them immediately that "If I mis-pronounced your name once, I allow you to mis-pronounce my name three times". They seemed happy with that deal.
Moreover, Knowing each other by name is good for future networking too. They  grow up fast and become your friend.

Selling  your name, even the first few letters of your name, is better than the situations when  students looking for you asks others with  your description such as the TA with the weird cap, sandle, or may be BIG nose etc. 

Have you ever mis-pronounced names? Any interesting stories that you faced with names?

Google Global Science Fair 2011

In association with CERN, National geographic, Scientific American and LEGO; Google brings the first global science fair. http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/
The competition is aimed to the students enrolled in home, public or private school from around the world. The age group is 13 - 18 years. Students may enter as individuals or in teams of up to 3.
The winner will take away $50,000 scholarship award and other exciting prizes (http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/prizes.html).

How to enter:

Here is one of the sample project about use of AI and health care system.

http://sites.google.com/site/tescasgsfsample/home

How to inspire your students?

It is said that it takes a whole village to raise kids...
The statement reflects the power a teacher has during the grooming of the kids in the classroom and beyond.

Some teachers took the parabolic flight, defying gravity and doing the experiments designed by their kids.

I think in the wake interest in increasing the number of students in STEM, one can devise NSF projects for such fun and inspiring projects.

How do you inspire your students?

Teaching and Learning: On the Board

How do you learn?
As a student, I have always been inspired by the class environment for teaching and learning.
One of the best way that I could point out is the fact that students learn by the looking at what the teacher is doing to solve the problem. For example, when my teacher was teaching the anatomy of an earthworm, just by looking at the picture, the way he drew it, I mastered it as soon as he finished drawing. Segment by segment, organ by organ. That was one of the amazing experience of biology class with me. By drawing the figure along with hearing the description worked at that time. Similarly, I had a full body size human skeleton system drawn on my wall.  It just worked straight out of board into brain.
So, when people talk about the interactive display of pictures in the biology classes, I feel what if I was in that class. What if my teacher had decided to bring a poster of earthworm instead of drawing it in the borad? could I learn it the same way?
Different students have different ways of learning. That was just one of the several case with me. Some people better learn by looking at the picture while being described. We all learn differently.
There are basic three kinds pointed in literatues:

• kinesthetic
• visual
• auditory

 In the classroom environments with bunch of students with different learning tendencies mixed together, is just like a puzzle spread around the room. An effective teacher is the one who has an art of touching everyone's style. Putting a video from MIT opencourse ware can be fun, but putting a video on the screen might not always be the best way to go.
Being innovative is rewarding because here is the tricky part: they are going to teach your kids some day.
:P