Lesson Plan 1

Greet. My name is Nathan Bell. Ill be your TA for the quarter. Im a first year
graduate student here, but I did undergrad here as well.
Poll them: What is background in physics?
What year in college are they?
General info: office hours in PAB 1-704 from 10-12 on T/Th. Come in and ask any
questions. That is time devoted to helping one-on-one. If youre having problems
with the homework, well be working on it in discussion, but office hours are the
best way to get personalized help. Email address: bell.nathan.r@gmail.com.
Probably best way to get a quick answer to simple questions. Ill try to respond as
quickly as possible aka within 24 hours.
How discussions will go: doing a combination of things answering general
conceptual questions, giving short explanations of important/difficult topics,
practice problems, and homework help. Specifically for the homework help part, its
useful if you come prepared with the problems you want to be worked through in
class otherwise youre at the mercy of me or your other classmates. I wont be able
to do every homework problem in class (OH are partially for that) so come prepared
if you want help in discussion. If you dont have specific problems you want help
with, Ill choose some of the more important/difficult problems and go over those.
How today will go: open up to general questions, do a short reminder/teaching
session, then homework help.
Does anyone have any general questions about concepts from lecture or the
structure of the class?
What did the professor go over on Monday? Did he begin going into kinematics?
Either way, today well be focusing on understanding the kinematic equations and
how to solve problems using them.
Key equations: PAGE 29. Im not sure why they include the fourth equation, vbar
doesnt show up anywhere else and this is a pretty rudimentary concept.
Lay out what the variables are, polling the class. The key to solving a kinematics is
to look at givens and desired answer. What quantities are granted to you? Which are
you looking for? For most problems there will be one kinematics equation where all
the quantities are given to you except one, which will be the quantity you are
looking for. Some more complicated kinematics problems will require you to chain
equations together requires some intuition gained by practice.
Conceptual problem: a ball thrown in the air draw. Understand that it is in 1-D. Ask
about the velocity and acceleration at every point. Key: acceleration due to gravity

is constant always 9.8 m/s downwards. Velocity starts at some intital velocity,
goes to zero at peak and goes to negative initial velocity at the end.
Warmup problem: PROBLEM 2.38. Have them work me through it, telling me the
givens/desired unknown and letting them choose the equation to use.
How far along in the homework have you gotten? Youre earlier in the week, so if
you want help in discussion, youre going to need to be on top of your homework.
Otherwise, youll have to come to Thursday office hours for help. Do you have any
specific homework problems you want help with? Help with those. Otherwise Ill do
some of the more difficult problem from the homework.
PROBLEM 44
PROBLEM 52
PROBLEM 37?