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Introduction
Dear Teachers,
Welcome to How Things Work I.
The demonstrator and lecturer is Professor Lou Bloomfield who has
originated and developed the courses How Things Work I and II at UVa.
To view a sample lecture, click on radio button Sample Lecture Videos.
The lectures are in MP4 format and can be viewed
using the software Quicktime on your computer. When you get your UVa email and password, you may download any lecture from Blackboard.
If you do not want to download the lectures, they will be available on CDS as before from the UVa bookstore at your expense.
For more information, click on
Overview. The
lectures are not rehearsed, but are edited versions of live lectures
given in Phys 105 at UVa. Assignments and administrative information
related to the course have been edited from the lectures. Most of the
several hundred students in the class take it as an elective
to fullfill a science requirement. Although the class that is taped is
an
undergraduate class, you will still find the lectures and demos
interesting and stimulating.
Our purpose in making this course available to teachers is to provide
you with a myriad of physics examples of "How Things Work" in everyday
life and demos that you can use in your classroom as a teacher. This is
an excellent way to motivate young people to learn about science. Some
of you may find the level of physics discussion in the classroom rudimentary. You are welcome to take the level of discussion
to any depth as you see fit in your own class room. You will, however,
find the multiple-choice exams more challenging as well as arriving at
the correct explanations for the essay
questions for the case studies that I assign for homework. As a result of
talking with many teachers who have taken this course, I have now added
some quantitative questions. These are numerical type questions that require you
to do simple calculations to get the correct answer. My version
of
this course allows you to earn 3 graduate credits of a 600 level
course, which can be used towards earning the Master of Arts in Physics
Education degree.
Most of the lectures start with a question and proceed to discuss the
physics surrounding the question. From the discussion of specific
applications we arrive at the general physics principles. The case
studies, multiple choice questions, and numerical questions
assigned for homework provide a good balance in ways to learn the material. You may also obtain
information on how to build any of the demos you see in this course.
For example, go to the website
http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/ and click on Demonstrations under Instructor Information.
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