20140820

Online reading assignment: syllabus quiz, flipped classroom

Physics 205A, fall semester 2014
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Students have a bi-weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.

The following questions were asked on reading textbook chapters on unit conversions and dimensional analysis, reading through the course syllabus, and watching two video presentations on the flipped class: "What Is the Flipped Class?" and "How the Flipped Classroom Works."



Selected/edited responses are given below.

Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"I have never seen units with negative exponents. Is m-1 the same as 1/m?" (Yup.)

"Why are there asterisks next to some of the questions on this survey?" (Those are the mandatory questions that must be answered (such as your name) in order to submit your assignment.)

"If we are doing the flipped class style of learning how will we be receiving 'lecture' material? Will it be, as the videos describe, online with video lectures?" (All slides for each lecture will be posted online--not as videos--but with the full narration text that would be included in a video.)

"Are we going to need to be able to memorize all the different conversions before our first test or are we allowed a conversion sheet? Are we supposed to memorize the metric prefixes?" (No--all conversion factors will be given to you; and yes, you do need to memorize all metric prefixes from Giga- (109) to nano- (10-9).)

"So what's the difference between the physics class at UC-Davis and the one you are teaching here at Cuesta? Are we getting the same education as the students at UC-Davis?" (Yes.)

"I chose to go to UC-Davis after graduating high school and was really excited until I had my first chemistry class with 500 other students. I left after two quarters and have had some of my favorite classes/teachers at community colleges." (Word.)

"Seriously, why do we use this textbook? I feel like it sucks (readability, organization), and there are a ton of physics textbooks out there." (Actually, all physics textbooks suck. Well, maybe some more than others.)

"I think you should have actually rapped Iggie's line about the lesson in physics in the song 'Fancy,' in front of the whole class.

"I probably won't call you P-dog, but I'll try my best." (Try harder.)

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