9/1 Chao

Walking into Honors Physics today and checking the board, we turned in our “What is a Radian?” take-home lab that we were supposed to complete last night with string, three different-sized circles from three different-sized cylindrical containers, and a protractor. After turning in the papers and reshuffling some people around (because our class is a bit uneven and lopsided in terms of people with partners), Coats-Haan told us to place a barrier separating ourselves from the best friend sitting just across. Not for the sake of privacy, as the barrier probably was not enough to hide one privately for one’s convenience, but for doing a fun activity dealing with treasure maps. Coats-Haan had one partner have a colored version of the treasure map, complete with bombs and sharks as obstacles that impede the ship from reaching its desired gold. The other partner had a blank, black and white copy of the treasure map. From behind the barrier, one person used a ruler and a protractor to tell his or her partner to draw the lines according to the route drawn on the colored version. After a few minutes of giving directions to partners and drawing lines, Austin’s group finished first, with a spot-on, accurate drawing of the map. They won Dum-dum lollipops as a treat. As a pirate would say, we had mighty fun comparing the drawn maps to the real map using the lights. Letting us do this activity allowed Coats-Haan to help us immerse ourselves into the concept of vectors and realize that the first three pieces of information needed for a vector were starting point, length of the potential vector and the angle in comparison to a reference line.

After recycling the treasure maps and witnessing Austin’s table of three chomping on their lollipops, Coats-Haan introduced the POGIL roles of facilitator, spokesperson, process analyst, and quality control; the descriptions were in the folder she placed on the desk. The facilitator helps lead the group in doing the task. The spokesperson is the “ambassador” for the group (Coats-Haan’s metaphor) and communicates with other groups to ask questions or with Coats-Haan. The process analyst helps make sure that people are caught up. The quality control person helps keep people on task and makes sure everyone is doing the process correctly. Each of the tables split up the roles based on the numbering she had on the board. 1 was acilitator, 2 was spokesperson, 3 was process analyst, and 4 was quality control. Every group established their roles in alphabetical order to match the numbering. Coats-Haan stated that the roles will change order every time we do a POGIL.

Coats-Haan emphasized the roles of the POGIL activity because she wants us to work together and learn together by asking each other questions and doing the activity ourselves. She pointed out today that a group a few years back, with Miranda’s brother she added, did a very good job of making sure everyone was caught up on the activity. Even though they took longer to finish the assignment, she said, they usually were more successful. On the other hand, she pointed out a group that sat at Austin’s table a couple of years ago in which one person, who shall remain nameless, would not talk at all. Standing with one foot atop the former student’s chair, coincidentally empty, she told us that when his group started the activity, he would just write and not communicate. She pointed out that the rest of the group did not know what was going on because one member of the group was mute. They, in turn, were less successful in making sure their whole group would be all on the same pace.

In terms of grading our POGIL’s, she stated that she may take up a team assessment sheet or she may grade an entire group’s papers or she may grade just one paper from each group. It depends on what she wants to do.

Our POGIL today was on Vector Addition, complete with little reading blurbs, questions, and problems. We were supposed to work until we saw a stop sign. Seeing a stop sign meant that the spokesperson would call Coats-Haan over to have us check our work with her. Once she approved our answers, we could move on until the next stop sign. She at least wanted us to get through the first page because this would help with our homework, but the majority of the class ended on the stop sign on the second page. Our POGIL will be finished tomorrow in class.

Vector addition involves two vectors with specific angles theta measured from the positive x-axis and always will be. The positive x-axis is our reference line. The length of a vector begins at a tail and ends with the head or arrow point. The length is also called the magnitude. Names of vectors are usually written in the style length, angle. Collinear Adding involved two parallel vectors in the same direction and adding their magnitudes together. Collinear Subtraction involved subtracting the second vector’s magnitude of opposite direction from the first. If the resultant vector is negative, then make the vector magnitude positive and switch the direction. The continuation of the packet involves vectors of two non-collinear directions and trigonometry.

Nothing was returned in our folders today and our homework is the Measuring Vectors worksheet that can be found on page 7 in our lab manual.

The Question of the Day is “What information do you need to accurately describe a vector?” The information needed to accurately describe a vector is angle measurement, length of the vector, and the starting point of the vector. The starting point of the vector can help indicate the positive x-axis’ position to help determine the angle of the vector in relation to that axis. The length determines the magnitude.