• If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Reminders from 11-1 TA Training

Page history last edited by Kim Moore 10 years, 4 months ago

Reminders from 11/1 TA Training (Lab 4, Part 1)

 

Here are the reminders from our TA training on Friday, along with a few extra things I forgot to mention: information on the Random Motion Survey and more details on lab equipment from John.  Please read through it all and let me know if you have any questions.

 

1) Recitation:

Cell Polarization and Activation (CRAC): http://umdberg.pbworks.com/w/page/60444396/Cell%20polarization%20and%20activation

Relay Cells: http://umdberg.pbworks.com/w/page/61013258/Relay%20cells

Since the student documents didn't copy with all the letters clearly indicated, students can link to these using the desktops/their laptops and see the materials online.  (You can direct them to these materials via the Recitation/Lab tab of the Course Webpage.)

 

2) Random Motion Survey: (from Vashti...)

I put a sheet of paper up on the front table in the lab room with this information, and wrote the link to the survey on the board.
 
The survey is for an undergraduate's senior research project. (Zach Krakower)
 
1) The survey should take less than 10 minutes (students on average take about 5 minutes)
2) TAs should feel free to use 5 minutes of recitation time, time between classes, or if they have some time in lab to have students do the survey
3) We ask that the students do the survey alone and only once
4) The link is on the board (http://tinyurl.com/Phys131Survey)

 

(Break)

 

3) Lab 4, Part 1: Random vs. Directed Motion:

 

a) John has sent us a picture of the staging area for solutions, etc., for lab 4. (See attached.)  He also wants to let you know: "A few notes for the TAs: extra solution and DI water for rinsing will be in the small box in the fridge. Extra chamber slides are in the cabinet if someone forgets to rinse and beads dry to the slide. Remember to leave chamber slides upside down to dry or (if dry) covered so they don't collect lots of dust."

 

b) Make sure to have students consider the system schema and FBD for a bead on an inclined slide before they begin.  (This could be a bit tricky--especially for representing 'thermal' forces--individual collisions with water molecules.  More than anything, we just want them to see that the force of gravity COULD cause the objects to accelerate, reaching a terminal speed down the incline due to a balance between gravity and the viscous resistive force (and other forces, too, but they may not think of buoyant force).)  Then have them watch the tracked video of various-sized beads in water on an incline and describe what they are seeing.

 

c) We expect that, in this first week of the lab, students will be able to: i) collect all three videos, ii) harvest the data from all three videos using ImageJ, and iii) start getting the spreadsheets for these videos into the proper form for <r^2> vs. t plots and log-log plots (though they may not actually make the plots until next week).

 

d) Students should be reminded to note the average frames-per-second for EACH video, as recorded by VirtualDub.  They should also be noting the magnification and resolution for the video (so that they can use the correct calibration slide to get distance-to-pixel information).

 

e) Students should be analyzing (ImageJ and Excel) on multiple computers, starting ASAP after collecting their first video.

 

f) Please encourage your students to clean up after themselves (throwing out their 1 mL pipettes, discarding any wet paper towels, replacing their solution vials in the appropriate portion of the box in the fridge, and (if you are okay with this) flushing their chamber slides using the DI water in the fridge and leaving the slides upside down on a paper towel to dry).  We also need to keep all the lab documents--these same documents will be used for both this week and next week's lab sections!

 

g) Remind your students to take their data (Excel files, Word documents, etc.) with them when they leave the lab--the computers will be wiped before Lab 4, Part 2!

 

4) Other Logistics:

 

a) James is bringing us snacks on 11/8.  Does anyone want to volunteer for the following Friday, 11/15?

 

b) It sounds to me as if we are flipping the grading for the upcoming exam:  Deborah grades Losert, I grade Redish, and everyone else grades the opposite exam from what they graded on Exam 1.  Do you agree?  If not, let me know.  If you do agree, please let me know if you will be available to help alphabetize, separate, and scan the exams (Thursday after 3:15 pm for Redish, Friday after 11am for Losert).  Also, please let me know if you will be available to help recombine and staple exams (Monday at 8:30am for Losert, Tuesday at noon for Redish).  I have attached spreadsheets for you to use when entering the scores for your problem for the exam--PLEASE USE THESE SHEETS!  They have been updated to include adds/drops/enrollment changes AND are in the order used by ELMS (to make uploading grades easier when we are finished).

 

c) Don't forget to enter your Lab 2 scores as soon as you can--I'd like to 'un-mute' these this weekend.

 

d) I have already sent a notice to all students to do the pre-reading and WebAssign response for both weeks of Lab 4.  (And I sent you these links in the email preparing for the 11/1 training.)

 

e) If you'd like, you could use Hilary's suggestion and send a 'please read the lab document and do a little planning prior to lab' to the students.  Maybe that will help them be better prepared.  Sima says that she liked getting emails like this from her TAs.  I am going to try it!

 

f) I do recommend that you grade the Lab 3 reports ASAP (so as to avoid grading an exam AND the labs next weekend).

 

Okay!  That's everything I can think of!

Good luck!

~KIM

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.