Physics Study Group- Mock Exams

This week I spent a large amount of time preparing for my mock exam in Physics, and I tried to help the rest of my class prepare as well. I updated my blog with notes covering much of the material that we were told to study, with the information being largely taken from the IB Physics Study Guide book. I made sure that I told the members of the study group about this, and I tried spread the word to everyone who might have found it helpful. In addition to this, I gathered as many members of the group as I could find to meet in the time before the exam on Thursday for some last minute studying. I personally felt that this was very helpful, as we were all able to help each other understand various topics, and we were able to review a lot in a small amount of time, using IB books, class notes, the school textbook, and the IB data booklet to help us determine what we needed to know.

Physics Study Group- Blog Update

I have updated my Physics blog at http://sturgisphysics.blogspot.com/ with a variety of things recently. I have posted notes that I took in class, a link to a website that I think could be very helpful (www.wolframalpha.com) and an image I found of a Hertzsprung Russell diagram. It sounds like some of my classmates have been using the blog, so hopefully it was helpful to them when preparing for today's test.

Physics Study Group - Blog

The Physics Study Group has not been able to meet very often, but I would still like to do what I can to help my class understand the material and prepare for the IB exam. I thought that one way to do this would be to create a blog which I could keep updated with the notes I take in class. So far, I have only posted some notes that I took about nuclear physics, but I will try to add more to it regularly. The blog is open for anyone to read, and I will see if any other physics students would be willing to contribute their own notes and knowledge to it. I think that this type of collaboration between students could be very beneficial to all of us.

The blog can be found here.

Physics Study Group - Changes in Structure

The Physics Study Group seems to be going well at this point, as we continue to work as a group answering example IB questions. However, I still believe that it could be more effective. Originally, the main goal of the group was to prepare Physics students for the IB exam. However, we are all concerned about our current grades in the class, and we often feel unprepared for tests and uncertain about homework. As such, I think that we may want to shift the focus towards group discussions regarding what we feel we need to improve on, and then address those issues to the best of our abilities at each meeting. Once we improve our grades as a group, we should be able to more efficiently prepare for our exams in the Spring.

Physics Study Group - SAT Review

The last Physics Study was spent going over material that some students would need to know for the Subject SAT in Physics. This material included the concept of relativity, which we had only just started to learn, but was likely to be on the test. The group was larger than normal this time, and other students, who were working on labs at the time, contributed to the discussion as well.

I am not sure how successful this meeting was towards the goal of helping students do well on their SATs; it is a complicated subject, and we did not have much time to learn it. Also, I am concerned that not everyone in the group completely understands what we are learning. I hope that I will be able to find a way for the material to be effectively communicated so that everyone can understand it.

Physics Study Group - Review

It has been difficult to organize the Physics Study Group recently - the Senior class is very busy at this time of year, making it hard for everyone to find the time to meet for Physics. However, the group is still meeting on Tuesdays at lunch when possible. We spent this week's meeting reviewing topics we learned last year. I thought this was very helpful for keeping the material fresh in our minds. Hopefully more members of the group will be able to come next week, when we will be going over topics that will appear on the upcoming Physics Subject SAT.

Physics Study Group - Second Meeting

The Physics Study Group was very successful in its second meeting. We had a total of six students show up to review IB questions and the material we have been learning in class. The turnout was much better than that of the first meeting, in which there were only three students in the room at any given time. This could be contributed to a couple of different reasons. Firstly, I tried to spread the word about the group to the Standard Level Physics class, because only Higher Level students came to the first meeting. Secondly, I ordered two pizzas for the group to share while we worked together, providing extra incentive for people to come while at the same time adding a little more of a fun and relaxed feeling to the whole experience. Everybody contributed to the review or had questions to ask, so the meeting was very productive. Next time, I will try to plan ahead and prepare questions of my own for the group to solve.

Physics Study Group - First Meeting

The Physics study group that I have been organizing met for the first time yesterday. The goal of the group is to gain a better understanding of Physics as a science and make sure that students are prepared for the IB exam. For the first meeting, Mr. Patterson, who is supervising the group, supplied us with some questions that we could expect to see from the IB, and we were able to work as a group to answer different parts of the questions until the subject matter began to make sense to all of us. Unfortunately, many people were unable to come to the first meeting, and I think that others were unaware that it was happening. I think that what we are doing could potentially be very helpful, but I may need to do more to get the word out about it for next week's meeting.