Tutorials in Introductory Physics will be used in all recitation sections for the Fall Quarter of General Physics III. This is a set of instructional materials, written by Lillian McDermott, Peter Schaffer and the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington, which is intended to supplement the lectures and textbook in an introductory physics course. The tutorials were designed to aid students in the development of important physical concepts and scientific reasoning skills. They have been extensively tested, evaluated and redesigned using the students from the introductory calculus-based physics course for engineers and scientists at the University of Washington.

The tutorials will be used as an integrated system of pretests, worksheets and homework. Each week a pretest will be given in lecture on material which has usually been previously covered in lecture. The pretests are intended to help students identify their understanding of the material and to provide the instructors with information on the level of student understanding. The pretests will not be returned and the performance on pretests will not count towards a student's grade. However, students will earn class participation points by taking pretests. The topics on the pretests will be followed by tutorial worksheet sessions in the recitation classes. During recitation, students will work together in cooperative learning groups to complete a sequence of tasks and questions given in the tutorial worksheets. The recitation instructors will not lecture, but act as facilitators. The instructors will ask questions to try to guide the groups to discover their own answers for the tutorial worksheets. Students will receive a score of up to ten points for the completion of the worksheets in each recitation class. The lowest recitation class score will be dropped and the total recitation score will be normalized to a maximum of 80 points for the quarter. Each recitation tutorial has an associated homework assignment. The homework sheets for a given tutorial will be due at the beginning of the following week's recitation class. Each homework assignment will be worth ten points. The lowest homework score will be dropped, and the total homework score will be normalized to a maximum of 40 points for the quarter grade.

 Weekly schedule of the physics tutorials to be done in recitation.

RECITATION DATES        TUTORIAL TITLE

6/18, 6/20                               NO CLASS

6/25, 6/27                               First Law of Thermodynamics

7/ 2                                        The Ideal Gas

7/ 9, 7/11                                The Kinetic Theory of Gases*

7/16, 7/18                                Superposition and Reflection of Pulses

7/23, 7/25                                Reflection and Transmission

7/30, 8/ 1                                 Electromagnetic Waves

8/ 6, 8/ 8                                  Two Source Interference

8/13, 8/15                                Convex Lenses

8/20, 8/22                                Photoelectric Effect

* These Tutorials are not in the textbook. The tutorial worksheets will be handed out in class.

Listed below are times and location for each recitation section.