Category Archives: syllabus creation

Creating supplemental texts

Posted on April 28, 2013 by

I’m nearing the end of a semester where, for one class, there was no official text. That’s going decently well, though I’ll likely have more to say about that in another post. What I want to talk about here are … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematica, syllabus creation, teaching | 17 Comments

Rigid body outline

Posted on April 11, 2013 by

I’m about to teach the dynamics of rigid bodies in my theoretical mechanics class, and I wanted to get down my plan. I developed and used this first a couple years ago, and I think I’m not going to change … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, syllabus creation | Leave a comment

Spring syllabi updates

Posted on January 28, 2013 by

Ok, after a month of crazy thoughts, here’s where I’ve (currently) landed for my two courses that start in two days. Modern Physics Still planning on using a free textbook Planning on having fake labs help with tangential math material. … Continue reading →

Posted in syllabus creation | 5 Comments

First day plan for Theoretical Mechanics

Posted on January 23, 2013 by

I’ve been putting some thought into the first “big idea” I talked about for Theoretical Mechanics in my last post (differential equations). Once again, Danny Caballero has really helped me with this, you should really check out his stuff. I … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, syllabus creation | 3 Comments

Theoretical Mechanics big ideas

Posted on January 17, 2013 by

I’ve taught Theoretical Mechanics before using Standards-Based Grading, but I think I want to make some tweaks to the focus of the standards. Here’s the old list. In this post I want to get my current thoughts down about where the … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, syllabus creation, teaching | 15 Comments

Fake data labs to support big ideas

Posted on January 16, 2013 by

I’ve written about my fake data labs before. The gist is that each student in Modern Physics chooses from a list of famous labs and figures out how you could redo them using modern techniques. They’re graded on how they … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, syllabus creation | 5 Comments

Set the standard at the end

Posted on January 6, 2013 by

Another in my series of cockamamie posts leading up to my spring semester. This one is another about Modern Physics (see my last one that talked about building and using a map for that course). I’m still on my kick … Continue reading →

Posted in sbar, sbg, syllabus creation, teaching | 10 Comments

What do we know, want, and need

Posted on January 1, 2013 by

It’s syllabus writing time again for me, and so I’ll likely have a few posts this month with some cockamamie ideas. They’ll be crazier here at the beginning of the month, most likely. Today’s is just such an example of … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, syllabus creation, teaching | 12 Comments