>> First of all, let me welcome you to Statics.
I'm really glad to have you here. I think it's going to be a really good semester and
I hope that you find it to be very informative as we go along.
I want to make sure that you know sort of how the course is set up and what you can
do to succeed in Statics as we go along.
The first thing you're going to see all the way through is a sort of an emphasis from
me on reading the book. And when I mean reading the book, I mean actually reading the part
that has the words in it, not just the part that has, sort of, the example problems. This
is useful, but it's only one part.
All of the principles we're going to talk about today are actually in this part, and
that's something that you may not be used to doing.
I don't think many of us when we were in high school or even at the beginning of college
read the words in our physics books. Some, certainly, but not all.
To help you sort of keep all of that straight, in your course pack you will see sheets that
look like this, where you've got a whole bunch of blanks for each of the sections.
I call these course preparation sheets or skeleton notes, sometimes.
As you're going through the reading, this is to help us sort of communicate so that
we're having conversation about what I think is important and what you should be getting
out of the reading,
because sometimes engineering textbooks can be a little bit, sort of, difficult to get
the real point from.
The principles of what you're reading are what we need to identify.
Beyond that, you will get to, of course, the example problems.
There are a lot of different ways to do this.
You can work them yourself, which is better.
You can watch me work them online. Those are in the LiveScribe videos where I'm actually
[writing]; you can see my hand and you can listen to my voice as I work the problems.
As you're doing this though it's very important that you're going to do some continuous sort
of self-assessing.
It's all very well and good to watch me work the problem, but are you going to be able
to work the problem?
There's practice involved, of course.
You've got online quizzes to help you. There's homework to do.
Again, I want to focus on this notion of "Can you summarize what you're doing and why."
How do these principles play out in each of these particular examples or practice problems?
And then of course there's studying for the tests. This [studying] is where people end
up spending an awful lot of time when I wish they were spending a little bit more time
up here.
So I am working a lot this semester on identifying what the principles are as you're going along.
Now, I want us to talk for just a minute about levels of learning. This is from Bloom's Taxonomy.
(I'm big into education theory.)
There are a lot of different ways of talking about what I mean when you learn something.
If I say, "What is 2 plus 2?" and you say "4," that's a fact. It's something you know.
Comprehending why is a little bit of a more difficult situation.
And then you get, can you then apply that knowledge to a new kind of problem?
Beyond that, can you analyze a problem that you have and take it apart and find out what
those principles are?
And then, can you put it back together again in a brand new situation?
Can you, in fact, evaluate what you have left over?
Can you prove me why? Can you defend your judgment?
Much of early, easy math and science problems/courses live up here in this level of knowledge. This
class lives sort of down in this, a little bit farther down this tree. That surprises
some students.
Some of you have come from backgrounds which were extremely rigorous, and you're not going
to be taking off guard by anything I do this semester.
But, if you are in a situation where you just absolutely cruise through all your math and
science before, I want to put you on your guard, because sometimes it's a different
kind of learning that I'm actually asking for. Sometimes not.
That will be up to you to figure out.
A couple hints. Don't skip the readings. That's where the principles are. I could talk from
now until you were gray, and you wouldn't really want me to read you all of the words
in that book, so that [reading the text] is important.
Make sure that this is a dialogue. The worst part here is that I tell you something and
you file it away, but we're not actually talking to each other.
Talk to your teammates. Talk to your classmates. Talk to a study group.
Work with identifying what those principles are and how they apply to the problems.
I have seen students who come in and ... Again this may not apply to you -- wonderful. I
have seen students however who come in and they're used to a situation where the teacher
works a problem, your homework looks just like that, the test problem looks just like
your homework and the problem I worked in class.
What you will find -- what you may find here, is that I'm going to work a problem and you're
going to work a problem that doesn't look like it and the one on the test is a third
kind and it doesn't look like it either.
So what you need to have identified is what the principles are in each of these to the
point where, in fact, they all start to look alike.
And that's where we're trying to get by this semester.
To do that, I want to come back to don't skip the readings.
Falling behind is, of course, always a challenge. Getting ahead is great, because then when
other classes get in the way, you're not behind again.
Organization, of course -- none of this is new. This is all stuff you all ready know.
There are a lot of resources available for you here.
There are the class notes online and those have in them the LiveScribe videos. They have
these [YouTube] videos in many cases.
There's a lot of material there for you to actually get through.
The learning objectives are in there too so that you can see what I think you should be
able to do.
Classroom capture. If you want to watch a whole hour and sort of see how the whole hour
goes, you're welcome to do that.
Textbook, notes, classmates. Don't forget the classmates. They're very helpful people.
Your message boards are where we're going to communicate.
Please don't e-mail me. We're going to go back and forth on the message boards unless
it's about grades or something really private.
I have online office hours.
You have homework solutions. But this is not for you to just check and see that you did
it right. It's for you to see how somebody else might have done something or to compare
how different people think.
There are extra problems if you need more practice.
And then there's a review site if you come in and you're already feeling like you're
overwhelmed. So if you need trig help or vector addition help or that kind of thing, that's
in the review site.
Overall, what I want to sort of emphasize is there are a lot of ways to get help here,
and I'm going to do what I can to make sure that you're learning experience is fantastic.