Useless Physics Teacher and Ways to Teach Oneself (1 Viewer)

[Eudemonic]

As the title suggests I have a rather useless Physics teacher, an old veteran of the craft who probably should have retired 20 years ago. This teacher stands in the front of the class as he speaks in a dour monotone and hands out worksheets which are supposed to cover concepts, but don't do a great job being messy and hard to read.

I'm happy to put in the time and effort to do well in Physic, I'm just worried on the means to do so. I may be able to obtain a Jacaranda textbook from the school but should I also buy another textbook, say IN2PHYSICS? Additionally would it help to have any other resources, dot points and so so and consider tutoring?

Cheers anyone who can help

btw i just started yr 11

 

[chickencoop]

Physics in focus was definitely the best book from my experience. I managed to teach myself for a majority of the content relying solely on the book.

 

[boredofstudiesuser1]

My school is using a textbook published by Macmillan called Physics 1. It was co-written by my physics teacher and I think it provides examples and questions that are really easy to understand and therefore I highly recommend it. I'm not too sure where you can buy it but a quick google search might lead you to it. it's by Mark Butler, David Hopkins and John Willis. 10/10 imho.

 

[Eudemonic]

Thanks guys will check out both books

 

[donkily]

Letslearnscience and other youtube channels

 

[BLIT2014]

Assuming the teacher marks to an HSC standard, hand in practice answers for feedback.

 

[Commando007]

read KISS booklets
they're really good tbh
however it doesn't use scientific language uses quite simple language
- but infocus is really good as well

 

[Eudemonic]

Andrew thats definitely a positive, in fact this particular teacher will let you do ANYTHING, once there was a punch on in class and he didn't even getup from his desk..

 

[Drongoski]

read KISS booklets
they're really good tbh
however it doesn't use scientific language uses quite simple language
- but infocus is really good as well

In that case, maybe it is just a watered-down feminised (a la Prof Michelle Simmons) physics.

 

[Eudemonic]

Had another lesson today. Due to us being so behind all the top kids in my class have all already got tutors and it seems I will to.

If not that, does anyone know a good resource for tough questions of the sort you might see in exams (mixing multiple equations and requiring problem solving)??

Otherwise thanks for all the halp

 

[pikachu975]

Had another lesson today. Due to us being so behind all the top kids in my class have all already got tutors and it seems I will to.

If not that, does anyone know a good resource for tough questions of the sort you might see in exams (mixing multiple equations and requiring problem solving)??

Otherwise thanks for all the halp

For tough questions check out the bored of studies trials, they have questions that are the hardest of the hardest

 

[donkily]

For tough questions check out the bored of studies trials, they have questions that are the hardest of the hardest

They dont have any for physics though

 

[pikachu975]

They dont have any for physics though

Probably check the top school trials as well as hard HSC questions. Last year (2016) they had a few hard multiple choice and short answers so be sure to check those out too.

 

[weaknuclearforce]

"IF" Physics is your thing, and you think you'd enjoy continuing studying the subject at Uni, I strongly recommend University Physics (Pearson publishers) or Fundamentals of Physics (Wiley) - these books are the real deal in terms of value and content. In hindsight, for HSC, I used the Physics in Focus books and they just leave a lot to be desired, poor explanations, very little insight - a good example would be the absolutely useless and confusing notation for simple projectile problems involving only gravity. The Uni books explain these sort of things from first principles and of course the books are a concise content of mankinds understanding that never grows old.

 

[pikachu975]

'who cares about the top kids in your class'-You're right because you should be caring about the top kids in the school as well as the top kids in the class. In the end, the school internal rankings plays too big of a role in determining your HSC mark to be ignored. If they are jumping ship onto the tutoring boat maybe they have good reason (i.e. teacher is awful) and there's nothing wrong in trying to identify these reasons and considering your own position eg. whether they will be receiving what appears to be lacking in class or how far ahead would they be ahead in terms of resources and exam technique. The key to high school is not only worrying about your own world but others around you and how they are playing the game

Nah I don't think caring about other people's marks is a good thing it's just going to stress you out, "oh no he's 20 marks ahead of me gg I'm gone no point studying" etc it's better to just focus on your own marks and improving your own not analysing someone else's marks and study patterns or something...

Also learning the content 3 times is completely irrelevant if a person still can't answer any questions properly. I can know every dot point back to front but still be bad at answering questions (which the HSC is all about now - application of knowledge) then it still won't help.

Tutoring definitely isn't necessary but it's a good idea (I go tutoring too so I can't argue against it), I've seen many people get 99.7, 99.8, etc, with no tutoring at all, just hard work.