God leaks Physics questions? He does?

I happened to drive into school from the district education office in Sentul almost immediately after the Physics SPM Paper 2 2011 ended. I waved at my students streaming of the school gate and met some girls lingering at the car porch!

Boy,  they were excited! They told me with glee - "Teacher - Resonance came out! We all can remember so well teacher did the experiment at the assembly !" Then Sabrinah and Kayathry said - "Yes teacher - we did the peer teaching lesson for resonance and it came out! Yeah!!"




The girls had done this very funny lesson on resonance where
everybody in the class laughed after they saw the video of the
opera singer breaking the glass by her soprano voice.



I enjoyed getting very feminine slides from Sabrinah and Kayathry.
After all this is CONVENT Sentul! Feminine slides
are simply so refreshing after all the co-ed schools
and the co-ed slides


So I asked the girls whether they remember when they did the resonance peer teach project. They said - "In March." I said " Wow, God has been loving you gals and leaking the SPM question to you since March and you didn't know and weren't even conscious He was loving you by making you do the very project that would come out in SPM !"

Then I recieved lovely emails from the girls who had left earlier and who didn;t get to talk to me after the paper.

It was for the resonance lesson I borrowed the guitar from SMK Seksyen 5 Lab! It was well worth asking my ex- lab assistant to send the guitar all the way to SMK Convent Sentul! And I did the resonance expeiment at assembly and spoke my Principal's motivation speech from it on teamwork and one frequency and one spirit. No wonder the girls remember the lesson so well!



The actual SPM question and my girls loved it!



Then in Paper 3, another question was " leaked" by God right from my first lesson with 5 Anggerik. Read the email and see if you understand why Dorothea was so happy!

So - you see God does leak exam questions even with us being aware of it at all and He leaks it way beforehand - right from my first lesson and first experiment with my students. I feel so good knowing this , that right from the very start God's presence and love  was in our classroom leading us to vital truths in Physics and in life without us having a clue. Haha!

Anniversary

Almost a year ago, last Hari Merdeka in 2010, I decided to celebrate Merdeka by starting a blog on Physics. Exactly one year later, I am still going on strong and I now maintain several blogs. I am glad I decided to celebrate Merdeka last year by doing this little something different - blogging! The prime mover for the Physics blog was because my ex-headmistress, Pn Habshah came to Seksyen 5 in July 2010 and asked all Panitia to start writing a panitia blog. Thank you Pn Habshah!

Actually the opportunities for learning Physics via the Internet is literally limitless! Usually there are some topics your teacher haven't quite finished teaching or some topics you don't quite understand.  I do know many of you are quite worried as all the Physics topics will be tested on in the Trial SPM 2011.  I also know many schools have not quite finished the syllabus, so how do you begin to learn on your own?

Simple!  Just google whatever topic you need to learn for example, CRO movies or electronics movies or radioactivity movies - especially the last 3 topics which you haven't quite finished and you will find many many videos of teachers teaching these topics or funny videos showing you how to understand the lesson.


The following are the links on electronics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3OSTflMO80&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnl1vuwjHto&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCe1JXaLEwQ&feature=related



The major difference between learning on the net and live from your teacher is that when you have questions, you can ask your teacher and in real life you have a relationship where your teacher and you enjoy one another's friendship and development.



Also your teacher can give you short cuts and tips to learning. For example, I like to use the Happy Family concept when teaching logic gates.  Secondly I introduce the logic gates by using an automatic artificial intelligence based on the binary system which only have two numbers 1 and 0 as in the case of the automatic piano in my music box.





This music box plays music automatically without
a human musician because of the binary system. Do you see the baby piano
in the music box?When the piano keys meet the white dots, they are raised and the input is 1.
When the keys meet the grey section the keys are down =0.
This means by positioning the white dots, I can raise the piano keys
and play a tune according to how I program the position of the white dots.

 

The AND gate is a very strict family when the father or Ayah (input A) and the mother or iBu (input B) have to agree ( be 1) before the Child gets ( output C) gets to go out and have fun any where ( output 1). The Boolean logic is simply A.B which means A multiply by B ie 1 x1 = 1 but 1x 0 = 0.
My short cut tip is the symbol looks like D for darab and D dor DAN which is BM for AND and multiply

In the OR gate, the family is less strict so if either father or mother says yes, ( input on 1) the child gets to go out. The OR gate already looks less strict since the lines are curved which means means the parents are not so straight laced or strict. The Boolean logic is A+B so if daddy A says yes = 1 but mummy says no = 0, the child gets to go out because 1+0 =1

In the Not gate, there is only 1 input so it is a bit like a single parent fanily with a rebellious child so if the parent input says yes,(1)  the defiant child says the opposite (0). My apologies to single parent families for using this allegory bcause not all children of single parent family are that rebellious.

Then you have the NAND ( Not + AND) which is really a very very rebellious child ie both parents says yes but the child says no. Similarly the NOR gate.

The exclusive gate is a little tricky. The parents are on the verge of a separation so if daddy appears, mummy won't appear and the party can be held without quarrels and vice versa but if both daddy and mummy appear, they will quarrel and the party is a no no.

You can see from the the 2nd row of the truth table for the X Or gate that if daddy A does not come (0) and mummy B comes (1) , then the child will have a party (1) but if both daddy and mummy comes as in the last  row, there will be a BIG quarrel and no party (0)

So I am trying to teach on line what I could not cover in the class. See how much you can understand and remember and come meet me on Friday in 5 M if you have questions.

Cheers and don't get so stressed out by Physics!

air show movie

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trying out new links

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Emf and ohm law experiments in the lab.

I was a little afraid that I would not see the day in Convent Sentul where every student can set up their own electrical circuit and take their personal individual readings of volmeter and ammeter without being aided by any one.

But today was the day the girls embarked on doing their electrical circuit for the first time in their life! Delightfully all 33 girls started doing their own experiment about 11.20 am and all completedthe experiment succesfully by 12.15 noon.

Sharmilla deep in concentration with her circuit.

Of course the preparations towards today's experiments were not as easy.


First the lab assistants had to be trained - thank God I managed to get Ibrahim my very competent ex- lab assistant from SMK Padang Tembak to come over to train our lab assitants for two days.

Now finally they managed to identify and locate long lost equipment such as the long rheostat etc etc, and prepare and repair whatever faulty equipment to make 15 sets of electrical circuits.


rb stands for red button and bb stands for black button and red lines indicate red wires connevted to the positive terminal of the battery and black lines represent black wires connected to the negative terminal of the battery.


I am happy to report the girls enjoyed the experiments and the first batch girls were able to confidently teach the 2nd batch girls to do the experiments.

There were some students I had to test to make they could do all on their own without any assistance and yes! Harkiren did it all by herself! Hallelujah! See the smile playing on Harkiren's lips as she sets up her own circuit.

Darshna sets up her own circuit under the watchful eyes of her two friends.

Rachael and Rinnisha grinning as they read their ammeters and voltmeters.

And lastly now to test you. What's the reading on the ammeter?

Essay question on waves Paper 2 Diagnostik 2011

Dear Phyics students,

I thought it appropriate to blog a bit about some of the answers apart from discussing in class so that you can still remember the discussion after the class.

I am personally very encouraged by the phenomenal improvement 5 A has shown in Paper 2. All except 4 students have shown great improvement eg the first 2 students alphabetically Aliah went from 12/100 in Paper 2 Intervensi Feb 2011 to 23/100 in Diagnostik Mei 2011 and Ammelya went from 27 to 50. Congrats! Most of you record about 50 - 100% improvment except for the 4 students. I pray and hope you will all continue to sustain the improvement but I see a lot of work on your Form 4 basic foundation needs to be done by both you and me.


To prompt your memory - the essay question 10c

My philosophy is you learn best from pictures. Look at the following pictures to gain ideas about the design of the hall, the furnishings and the sound and lighting systems as stipulated in the question.


See the parabolic shape of this ceiling to improve acoustic effect.

Note the many lamps on the ceiling and the parabolic shape of each lamp.

Note the red carpet on the floor to absorb the echo

Note again another view of the parabolic shape stage, the many parabolic lamps and trough lamps and the chair cushions to absorb echo.

Note again carpets, cushioned banner and cushion chairs to absorb echo and parabolic shape stage for acoustics and the two speakers at each extreme end so that a is big and x the distance between loud sounds( constructive interference) is small.









This pic is just for fun! Name these two paraoblic shape instruments. You saw them during the orchestra performance.

Finally the answer to part 10 d must be quite long as it is for 4 marks.

a few new links by an interesting young Physics teacher

Dear students,

You may find Mr Siew links to be interesting. He is a young Physics teacher with lots of potential and passion.

Physics form 4 - ticker timer versus ticker tape experiment

student centered learning

Enjoy

Puan Tan

Balloons and Physics

Finally I put a new post on my physics blog. I am happy with the progress of my 5 Anggerik students and am confident they will improve. Today's extra class was fairly well attended- 43/60 despite today being a holiday for the school and best of all we had great fun while learning!

Picture shows Sabrinah and Rinnisha with a balloon. Sabrinah whispers something from her section and Rinnisha's eyes gleam and she smiles sweetly when she hears the whisper ever so clearly.

Every where I look, I see happy faces smiling and yet they are learning Physics. I have asked students to do this activity countless time. I love watching the surprise and the joy in their faces. That is what I called Hearts on Learning! This teaching strategy I used often is called Hands-On, Heads-On and Hearts-On Learning. The learning begins by mastering a pyschomotor skill - Hands-On, explaining it cognitively ( Heads-On) and experiencing the joy of learning and a boost in confidence and meaningful applicable learning ( Hearts-On Learning)

The Physics behind that? The carbon dioxide in the balloon blown using our lungs is more dense and makes the balloon acts as a convex lens. The convex lens will focus Sabrinah's soft whisper and amplify it since Rinnisha's ears are placed near the focal point. This experiment illustrate the refraction of sound waves.

What do you think will happen if the balloon is filled with helium gas?

All over in the APD room, the girls conduct the experiment. Every 2 girls share one balloon and take turns to speak and to hear so that they can experience the effect of the baloon focussing the sound personally.

Occasionally some balloons burst and pop loudly and we shriek. This activity is also an example of a pair-shared teaching strategy

Today we conducted many experiments. We started with the diffraction grating and then Young's double slits. We also did the polaroid experiments. The students had a chance to enjoy my powerful green laser. To understand what I am talking about, please read my earlier posts on diffraction gratings last year.

I had to rush off to the Education department but Dorethea, Michelle and Norashikin continued the lesson and taught Parabola to the students using the Student Peer Teaching Strategy. I am quite sure the whole class had fun learning from them as student peer teachers although I wasn't there