Physics 20x | Recitation |
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You will meet with a TA in recitation each week (see the boxsand homepage calendar for dates!). Your recitation TA will inform you of the recitation structure during the first meeting. Most recitations will feature a quiz designed to replicate an exam question or questions. Your performance on the quiz will not directly impact your course grade! However, your performance on the quiz will give you a better understanding of the exam structures, question types, how well you are understanding the material, and how the grading for this course works.
The goals we have for Recitations:
- Give you experience reviewing your peers' work so that you, and they, may learn to communicate better
- Give you a chance to revise your work after consulting with peers
- Learn to communicate science in written form
- Learn what is expected of you in this course (what does mastery of the subject mean?)
- Get feedback about whether you are meeting these expectations
During recitations this term, expect to do the following:
Individual Solution | You will be given about 20 minutes to write a solution to one or more problems relating to the week's material. You will submit your solution to the TA.
TA Discussion | Your TA will lead a short discussion and provide hints towards what physical tools from the week's material should be used to solve the problems you saw in the first 20 minutes. These hints will remain on the board as you work in groups for the next section.
Group Solution | You will get into groups of 2 - 3 students. Your group will have 20 minutes to discuss and write out a group solution on a whiteboard to the same problems you worked on individually, plus an additional question (or several questions). Please work together, including all students in this process. The goal is to support each other to a greater understanding of the problem, physical tools, and solution.
Grading | Recitations will be graded based on attendance and completion of the activities.
Formative Feedback | Your TA will "grade" your individual solution and return it the next week. This "grade" will not impact your course grade. Please use this as constructive feedback to help you improve!
Academic Integrity | The grading of recitations means there is no incentive to copy or share solutions to the recitations ahead of time. Do not do this. It is academic misconduct. But perhaps more important than your own integrity, if you were to share solutions ahead of time you would rob your fellow classmates of a chance to learn and better themselves. Plus, there is nothing to gain as it will not even improve their grade!
Recitation quizzes are not meant to be high stress, high consequence exercises. The emphasis in these exercises is reflective analysis of your own methods of problem solving (and perhaps even studying methods!). The goal is to get you feedback in many different forms so that you can quickly improve in your physics knowledge and skills. This is a process known as "formative assessment". It is meant as a tool to help you improve instead of a final judgement. These should be supportive environments to assess your own progress through the course as well as learn from your fellow classmates and the TA, all of whom are invested in your success!
Clearly organizing your solutions is paramount to partial credit. Most solutions should include at least the following:
- physical representation: diagram or figure
- list of known and unknown variables that pertain to the problem
- list of equations that pertain to the problem
- organized, step-by-step, application of each equation with the appropriate variables
- any assumptions or symmetries that are exploited must clearly be stated
- sensemaking analysis
- clearly boxed answer with at least 3 significant figures if it is a numerical solution