The questioning session also highlighted the fact that the students that did not wish to participate during classroom discussion may be having difficulty understanding the topic fully, and therefore extra sessions that are designed to re-enforce the previously covered work may be required.
My second assessment tool was a part completed handout with a range of short answer questions at the end. Again this is a form of assessment that I use regularly within my classroom sessions and I feel that it works effectively. I design the work packs to be read as a group and the blank spaces completed as we arrive at them. The purpose of the blank spaces is to encourage thought on behalf of the learner and to try to ensure that the students remember this information. The final section within the pack consists of a range of questions covering the work that has been completed within the pack. The questions are designed to begin at a low level and to gradually build up towards difficult, the purpose of this varied degree of difficulty is to allow the student the build on their confidence with the beginning questions and to allow the more able class members the opportunity to progress onto the more advanced questions. I often include more questions than I think it will be possible to complete for the majority of the class within the time scale allowed, as I feel that it is preferable for the slower members of the group to have missed some questions than the faster students to have finished all of the questions which could then lead to disruption within the lesson. The questions are not intended to be summative and therefore I usually offer the students assistance when completing them, provided the student has at least attempted the work alone first, this allows me to see which students require the most help and any areas of the topic that may need to be reinforced.
I feel that both of the mentioned assessment techniques are of use, both individually and when combined, although within the examples that I have given neither of these tools are being used for summative purposes, I feel that they can prove to be of great importance when assessing the amount of learning that is taking place throughout the course and to increase student participation.
Bibliography
Teaching and learning in higher education (3rd edition) 1976– Ruth Beard.
Competency based education and training 1990– edited by: John W Burke.
Teaching and learning in further education (2nd edition) 1982– L.B Curzon.
Teaching, Training and learning (4th edition) 2002– Ian Reece
and Stephen Walker.
Psychology and the teacher (3rd edition) 1981– Dennis Child.
Distance and Displacement.
If a person walks a DISTANCE of 14km does this mean that the distance between his starting point and his final position will be 14km?
The answer is no, this is not necessarily the case.
In reality his final position could be anywhere within a 14km radius of his starting point, in fact the walker could finish at exactly the same point that he began at.
- if we look at one possible route that the walker may have taken: if the walker first walked for 6km Northwards from his starting point. He then stops for a rest and turns 90° to his left, he continues to walk in this direction for a further 8km.
i) Draw the path taken by this walker to scale.
- Calculate the overall DISTANCE travelled by the
walker when following this route.
- Mark on the scale drawing that you have made, the shortest route between the starting and finishing point. Measure this line and state the distance in km.
- Confirm your answer by calculation using Pythagoras theorem.
The figure that you have just calculated is called the DISPLACEMENT.
The DISPLACEMENT is the change in position of the walker, and to make this figure complete we must include the direction of this displacement.
v) Measure the angle between the initial path taken by the walker and the line of displacement.
We can now say that the displacement is ____km at an angle of ____° West of North.
This shows that the difference between distance and displacement is that distance has magnitude only (14km), whereas displacement has magnitude and direction (km and °)
A quantity that has only magnitude is known as a ________.
Whereas a quantity that has both magnitude and direction is known as a _________.
Speed and Velocity.
Just as we have said that distance and displacement have different although similar meanings, so too do speed and velocity.
SPEED:
Like distance, SPEED only has magnitude, and simply refers to how fast an object is travelling. SPEED is therefore is a _______ quantity. A fast moving object has a high speed while a slow moving object has a low speed.
- To find the average speed of an object we must divide the _________ by the _________.
Average SPEED = ___________
VELOCITY:
Like displacement, VELOCITY has both magnitude and ________, it refers to the rate at which the object changes its position. VELOCITY is a _________ quantity.
- To find the average VELOCITY of an object we must divide the ________ by the __________.
Average VELOCITY = _________
- Think of a person moving quickly forward and then backward to the starting point, the speed of this person may be high as they are moving through a distance quickly although their velocity will be zero. This is because the velocity depends on the displacement of the person,
which would be zero.
Acceleration.
When using the previous calculations average velocity and speed is used and any variations to this are not taken into account.
These variations in velocity are known as ___________(for increasing velocities) and ___________(for decreasing velocities).
- ACCELERATION is the rate of change in velocity with respect to time.
In reality a journey with an average speed of 55mph may actually consist of a wide variation of speeds, from 0 to 70mph.
Take an average car journey for example;
If we consider a car travelling in a straight line from A to B and reaching a maximum velocity of 31m/s we can calculate the acceleration as follows:
The formula for calculating the acceleration of an object is:
ACCELERATION = ______________
Therefore the acceleration during the first 30 seconds is:
And the deceleration during the last 20 seconds is:
From the formulae we have looked at already three main equations of motion have been developed and may be useful when dealing with linear motion with constant acceleration, these are:
1) V = u + at
2) S = ut + ½at²
3) v² = u² + 2as
Where: v = final velocity (m/s)
u = initial velocity (m/s)
t = time (s)
s = distance (m)
a = acceleration (m/s²)
QUESTIONS.
Include ALL working out and UNITS.
1) What is the displacement of a truck that travels 20km North followed by 30km East?
-If this whole journey took 40 minutes, what was the truck’s average: a) Speed.
b) Velocity.
2) An aircraft, flying at a constant speed, covers a distance of 9500km in 10 ½ hours. Find:
i) Its speed in m/s.
ii) The number of km covered in 1¼
hours.
iii) The time taken to travel 6500km.
3) A car travels 60 km north before continuing for another 55km at an angle of 60° to the right of his original path. At the end of this road the driver turns 90° to his left and drives for a final 75km.
Construct a scale drawing of the cars path and using this drawing determine: i) The overall displacement of the vehicle.
ii) The direction of this displacement.
4) A car travels 100km in 3 hours at a constant speed, and then travels a further 120km in 2½ hours, again at constant speed.
Find:
- The speed in km/hour for the first 100 km.
- The speed in km/hour for the second 120 km.
- The average speed for the total 220 km.
- The distance travelled after 2 hours.
- The time taken to travel 160 km.
5) Determine the average speed of an athlete who runs 1500m in 3 minutes 45 seconds.
6) A hovercraft travelling at an average speed of 70 km/h completes a cross-channel journey in 35 minutes. Determine the total distance travelled.
7) A car travelling along a road increases it velocity from 8.9m/s to 17.9m/s (about 20mph to 40mph). This takes 20 seconds. Calculate the acceleration of the car and the distance travelled during this period.
8) Given that light travels at 3 x 10⁸ m/s and that the distance between the sun and the earth is 150 x 10⁹ m, estimate the time taken for light leaving the sun to reach the earth.
9) A particle with an initial velocity of 4 m/s is accelerated by a constant force producing an acceleration of 3m/s². Determine its velocity after 8 seconds.