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Comments
on the 303L MI curriculum in chiu section, spring2012 ---------- A call on your feedback for this course ----------------------- During the
semester, I mentioned that our department is very interested in students’
input to our MI-curriculum. Now you are done with this
course, you are in the unique position to give us your overview about this
course. This could include although not limited to the following. ---------- Last call on your exit-comments 5/16/2011 -------------------- Hi, I hope you all have had a substantive learning experience in this course. I have updated the web page linked to M&I curriculum, which is one of the menu items on our course page. Please take a look, especially on: o Words from students in spring2012 (toward the end of the page) o Also the overview at 4th bullet. Thanks to those of you who have contributed your thoughtful comments and suggestions. I think all of you will enjoy reading the Words. I consider it my privilege to have had you in my class. During the semester, many of you may not have had the opportunity to talk to me on one-on-one basis. If you have not sent in your exit-comments, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. This is a chance for you to express yourself and to tell me directly your experience about this class. Your contribution will help me to know a bit more about you. As a side benefit, later on if you need a reference letter from me, your exit-comments may serve as a good reference point to help both you and me to recollect your experience in this class. Thank you. Again it was nice to have had you in my class. Have a great summer. Charles Chiu -------------------------------- ð Student’s comments |
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I really enjoyed taking this course.
I thought the text book was excellent, and helped me a great deal in preparing
for the homeworks and exams. I also liked that we had clicker quizzes every
day, so those of us who came to lectures received a slight reward.
Thank you for your great teaching
this semester.
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ð Student’s comments
Below is my feedback for the course
in red:
1) Do you like the text book? Do you
think it is a substantive introductory physics course for E and M? I really liked the textbook, the breakdown of the concepts
and how the calculus is related to the concepts was very intuitive and
helpful. I thought is was a great text for the introduction of college level
physics.
2) Would you recommend this course to your friends? Absolutely, the course is rigorous but I learned the concepts
and feel i can approach just about any intorductory physics question armed with an excellent set
of tools and be successful.
3) What aspects you like the most about this course? I enjoyed the focus on the concepts rather than just how to
solve the homework problems. This gave me more breadth of knowledge and
the confidence to apply what I have learned.
4) Last but not the least, please comment on how we can further improve this
course. The TA sessions were pretty rough this
semester which can possibly be attributed to my personal feelings about the TA
and LA's in the sessions. I felt that the TA and one of the LA's were not
very helpful during the session; in fact, they were condescending and prevented
me from getting the most out of the class. Theron
would be the exception, he was ALWAYS helpful and
provided excellent guidance for solving the problems we were presented
with. A suggestion for improvement would be to not only assign TA/LA's
that are high academic achievers, but also those that have good people skills
and a desire to help fellow students. I felt my TA did not have a genuine
interest in the success of the students and viewed the TA sessions as an
arduous task. He was by far the worst TA I have had at
UT.
Dr. Chiu, it was a delight
to take your class this semester; it was tough, but I learned more in this
class than I have in any other physics class! I feel this way in spite of
the less-than-desireable assistants that were
assigned to you this semester. I felt you had a genuine interest in the
students learning and it showed.
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ð Student’s comments
I thoroughly enjoyed your class and
the manner in which it was taught. I liked the flow of the class and
found it to be a building-upon process just as much as a learning process.
1) The textbook was fantastic,
my only con being that there is the occasional substantive question [in
the light purple boxes] and some post-chapter exercises are left open
or unexplained in the text... couldn't they have a database or reference at the
end of the book/chapter. Overall the course fulfilled all my
expectations for increasing my knowledge-base of E and M physics.
2) I would
most definitively recommend this class to other students.
3) My favorite part about this
course... everything(except that class was so early in
the morning), especially that we didn't have to do Vpython
models!
4) To improve the class, I
personally would add the option of, in lieu of having to drop one's
lowest test grade, dropping more homework grades(or
something of that nature[i believe the tests are the
real descriptor of how well the intended knowledge is absorbed and
maintained]). I felt the workload was awfully large and
although i received all A's on my Exams, I
had a 70 HW average...
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ð Student’s comments
I'm happy to give feedback on the
course. You know my particular situation and so that bears on my experience.
Given that these are my observations;
I enjoyed the course very much. I think the text book does quite a good job of
explaining physics and most of the math required. My biggest struggle with the
class was with math. The most important thing I learned was how much I love
physics!
I feel there is a bit of a disconnect between the text
book and the homework problems. Often while working homework I would spend a
good deal of time just trying to understand the nature of the problem. The
terminology is often different from the text and so many times I was clueless
as to what the problem was stating. I observed this disconnect between the
text, homework and lecture material as well. These are issues that can be
overcome, but sometimes not without unnecessary time spent. I noticed that the
practice problems in the textbook of course are very consistent with the text.
From my perspective it would have been nice to have been assigned homework
problems from the textbook.
My observation is that this class was a marathon. The pace of homework at 3 per
week was extreme, for me. I had a difficult time keeping up with it. At times I
spent 30 hours per week on this class alone. But, that's probably largely due
to my personal circumstances. Despite that I am pleased with my final grade, A.
I feel that the tests were unusually easy. Many problems came directly from the
homework. Not the typical rigorous physics exams one expects.
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ð Student’s comments
Finals went well for me and I feel
that I performed well on my final exams. I'm glad to be able to relax now that
the semester is over. In regard to input for the Physics 303L course, here is
what I feel about the class:
1) I thought the textbook was
excellent for this course. It provided many pictures and examples which is nice
when you are trying to understand a certain concept. It also provides students
with examples of these concepts are applied today and what use they have in
science and engineering which makes the subject more interesting.
2) I
would definitely recommend this class to my friends. Although this is
a class that requires a lot of study time and reading, it has very useful
concepts that I think all engineering and science majors should know.
Many people choose to take this class at Austin Community College however I
think they are making a mistake because they are depriving themselves of the
opportunity to learn physics and understand it
more thoroughly here at UT. Students who take physics here at UT
have, in my opinion, a much better knowledge of physics than a student who took
it at ACC.
3) I thought lecture was the most
interesting and enjoyable part of this course. The IQ quizzes are very
helpful because they reinforce what we learned from the reading. The
IQ quizzes also tell us our weaknesses so that we can strengthen that part of
our knowledge before doing homework and exams. The lecture demo are also interesting and add some fun and enthusiasm to
the course which is a good thing.
4) As far as improving this course,
the TA session needs to be improved because it was very
disorganized and a lot of the students I talked to feel that it was a waste of
time because they were not benefitting from it. I think the TA session would be
much more beneficial to the students if the TA's would go
over problems relevant to that week's lecture. The problems should
be similar but different than hw problems.
It is also important to coordinate the TA sessions so that they go over the
material that is being covered in lecture that week.
I also want to thank you for a great
semester. I feel that I learned a lot from your class and I have a good
understanding of E and M.
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ð Student’s comments
It
was an absolute pleasure working with you this semester, and I can honestly say
of all the professors I've had at UT so far, none have shown the same care and
desire for our improvement as you have, so thank you very much for all your
efforts and work for us students.
1) Do you like the text book? Do you think it is a substantive introductory physics
course for E and M?
I think the text is a great read and focuses more on concepts which is nice
since quest takes care of the problems and practice quite well. I found
skimming the book before the exams the most helpful and the examples in the
back of the book were nice as well. Overall, this was a great book.
2) Would you recommend this course to your friends?
This is a course with difficult subject matter and at times, a rigorous
workload, so unless a student had to take this class, I'd advise a different
route than 303L just to fulfill some requirement.
3) What aspects you like the most about this course?
As a petroleum engineering student, E&M is a topic we rarely, if ever
discuss. I very much enjoyed learning about a totally new topic and being able
to apply my knowledge to other fields (ie: the
concept of lenses in my neurobiology class when we studied the eye).
4) Last but not the least, please comment on how we can further improve this
course.
I think the only major change would be to post practice exams like the one for
the final, before each midterm. Also, some homework problems
seemed out of place and not entirely useful. But overall, there isn't
much I would change.
Thanks again Dr Chiu for all your work this semester, you were one of the best
professors I've had the opportunity to learn from. Please let me know if there
is any other way I can help with improving 303L. Have a great summer.
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ð Student’s comments
Here are my responses about the course. Sorry for not
sending this to you earlier!
1) Do you like the text book? Do you think it is a
substantive introductory physics course for E and M?
Unlike the first half of the M&I text (used in 303k), I
did not like the textbook very much this semester. I feel like it was not in
depth enough for the second half of the course.
2) Would you recommend this course to your friends?
Despite not particularly liking the text, I thought this
course was pretty reasonable. I have already recommended that my friends go
ahead and take E&M here, and not be scared off by all the horror stories
other people have told them about taking physics at UT.
3) What aspects you like the most about this course?
I think having you, Dr. Chiu, as my professor made a big
difference. From what I have heard from other sections, some other professors
were either very boring, or moved too quickly. Some of
my friends resorted to just self-studying from the textbook. I, however, found
lectures to be pretty useful. I also liked demos a lot. They helped me better
visualize a lot of concepts, which was super helpful, because I do not
intuitively get E&M as much as I did mechanics.
4) Last but not the least, please comment on how we can further improve this
course.
I did not like the set up of online office hours as much as
in 303k. I feel like there were way too many people. However, this may be
something that varies with each individual TA.
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ð Student’s comments
I really enjoyed your class this semester. Your lectures in combination with
the M&I textbook were very helpful for me to understand the basic concepts
of the course. The TA sessions could have been more helpful if they did
not try to cover material that had not been covered in class. It would also
have been helpful to have had less questions in the TA
sessions to focus.
Having the test be a reflection of the homeworks
was very useful in helping me to review for the test. And having the tests be a study guide for final made studying a lot less
stressful and allowed me to focus on the concepts behind the physics. Thank You,
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