Departments

PHYSICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT

What are the most important knowledge, skills and abilities for your students to have upon completion of your program?

• Unit Conversions
• Inferring information from written problem
• Ability to read textbook, and study and outline it!
• Ability to apply concepts to a new problem
• “See” interrelationships between disciplines
• Viewing science as a PROCESS
• Ability to troubleshoot
• Apply the scientific method to solve problems
• Ability to convey clearly what they have learned with the proper jargon.
• Adept at math appropriate for the course
• Ability to do library research
• Honed graphing skills
• Presentation skills

Favorite assignments in Physical Sciences

• Short exams (10-15 minutes)
• Review sessions
• Having students grade each other's reports (they get feedback)
• Have students write their own exam questions
• Oral arguments for a position
• Introduce a scenario and have students solve the “mystery”.
• Design a projectile motion demonstration based upon physical engineering principles
• Presentations on consumer products, or over-the-counter drugs, for example.
• Give students latitude and a longitude and have them determine the location and figure out some things about it.
• Have them build an inductor, capacitor Competition

What Frustrates Physical Science Professors

• Poor attitudes
• Being late to class
• Phones ringing in class
• Fear of mathematics
• Insufficient equipment
• Quantity
• Quality
• Poor skills (especially in Math)
• Large class sizes that are too large for the laboratory
• Students falling asleep in class which we see as a lack of respect
• Bands playing loudly during class
• Complaints from students
• Students who do not want to engage
• Students who do not know how to study

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