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How do you schedule/plan a subject that you are not working on concurrently with your student?


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I am really struggling to schedule both math and physics for next year. I have been working concurrently on AoPS with my ds for 2 years, but I am about to back off. I also don't really want to relearn physics, and want him to learn independently, which he can absolutely do. He has excellent focus and drive, but he is young (12) and needs me to plan and schedule his work. I am happy to do this, but I cannot figure out how to do this well if I am not doing the work concurrently. I can make a general annual and then monthly plan, but the daily goals seem impossible to design.

 

So, lets take AoPS as an example. I think the best approach is Regentrude's -- I would love to have my ds spend as much time as needed on the different topics. However, he does NOT like this approach. He really likes to know what specific sections he needs to do, and then feels that if he works hard, he can have a longer break. It is motivating to him to know what is expected and what his daily goals are. The problem is that different sections take differing amounts of time. So some days he can only do 1/2 a section and other days he can do 2 sections. And I can't know which is which unless I have done the work. Also, today I realized that he should not work linearly through the number theory book next week, and I only knew this because I was doing the work. There were just too many challengers, and then there was an entire chapter of just calculating (+,-,x,/ of different bases) that was really dull. I was clear to me that he should split the challengers up over 4 days to do while he learns to calculate in different bases. He would *never* think of this, and I only know about it because I have worked through the material this weekend.

 

I am also looking a physics for next year, considering Giancoli or Knight. But there are just so MANY problems at the end of each chapter. My ds is too young/immature to know when he needs to do more because he does not fully understand. He is just a do it ALL kind of guy, which clearly won't work with the Giancoli text. He needs ME to tell him how much to do. But there is no way for me to know. There are just so many problems to choose from. I can use other's suggestions, but then I don't know if their list is appropriate for *my* son, who is younger than the typical physics student. I just can't see how I can know unless I do the work too. And I just don't want to be doing the work also. I really don't.

 

So my title says it all: how do you schedule/plan a subject that you are not working on concurrently with your dc?

 

Thanks for any advice,

 

Ruth in NZ

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Ruth, just bumping this up as I happen to be awake. I outsourced physics with Derek Owens for this very reason. I would have to re-learn physics otherwise and I was not prepared or ready to do so. DH is a physics expert but he travels about half the year in total and it wasn't feasible to leave it to him. Derek's course gives DS a very workable plan. And for the very reason that he is young, outsourcing gives DS the support and structure he needs (Derek's syllabus is easy to follow) and again, because DS is still young, we can still do a round 2 using the Giancoli text (Derek's course is based on the Giancoli text btw) again if DS thinks he needs that review. I understand you may not want to outsource but I wanted to mention this just in case you run out of other options.

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Regentrude has some physics syllabai posted that give homework assignments. There are 3-7 per lesson, nothing like the 60-70 at the end of the book.

I still found those to be a bit of a stretch at times. We had to spend some time searching the Internet for simar problems to figure out what we were forgetting to include.

For the summer I will probably switch to the problem sets in an AP Physics B prep book . Knight just proved too big of a bite for something that I will call physics without honors or an attempt at an AP exam.

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Hi Ruth,

 

Just to say about Giancoli, I don't know what math your son is doing...Mine tried to do it concurrently with Algebra II but he hadn't really done enough problems to make him really fluid...So we ended up going back to easier texts, then he did Giancoli the following year to take AP Physics B and did much better.

 

I'm not great at knowing the problems, but maybe if no one answers on this thread, make a more specific request for the particular books you want to use....

 

Ds did Giancoli with PA homeschoolers if that would work for you...

 

Joan

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Can't comment on math, because, as you know, we just set a specific amount of time for math and then call it done.

 

I am also looking a physics for next year, considering Giancoli or Knight. But there are just so MANY problems at the end of each chapter. My ds is too young/immature to know when he needs to do more because he does not fully understand. He is just a do it ALL kind of guy, which clearly won't work with the Giancoli text. He needs ME to tell him how much to do. But there is no way for me to know. There are just so many problems to choose from. I can use other's suggestions, but then I don't know if their list is appropriate for *my* son, who is younger than the typical physics student. I just can't see how I can know unless I do the work too. And I just don't want to be doing the work also. I really don't.

 

I do not think that the problem selection required for mastery has anything to do with the student's age. You need a set of problems that cover all the concepts and all the types of problems the student needs to master, and have enough repetition. So, I would recommend starting with somebody else's schedule and see how things go. Only somebody with experience will be able to make a representative problem selection that meets the learning objective; without the physics knowledge, it is impossible to judge the difficulty and see what precisely the problem is meant to teach by just reading the problem description.

If he is unable to master the concepts with this amount, you can always add more practice. I published my schedule for Knight. I assign about 8-10 problems per week for my college physics class, which really is just a high school level class, to be honest. (About 10th grade level in my home country.) My DD took my course at age 13 and finished on top of the class; she did the assignments on schedule, and also took the exams with the class in the time they had available. You can always adjust the difficulty by giving more time.

(Btw, we do not call this "honors" or do the AP exam because my kids take calculus based physics at some point anyway.)

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I've struggled with the time verses assignment method. I usually just have to go with time, but when I can I do assignment for their sake. I've struggled, too, with the perfect assignment for each child. The reality is that I don't have time to figure out the perfect assignment for each child. When I can I adjust, the way you talked about, but a teacher in a classroom can't tailor each assignment for each child.

 

This isn't a quick fix and you are probably doing this already, but you could teach/model/coach him to do this himself. Talk through why you have assigned problems the way you have. Think aloud to him about why you decided he should not work linearly, what you have decided to do instead. Model for him that thinking process. Over time he may begin to do some of this himself and you can coach him along the way by asking questions.

 

I've asked many times of my (usually high school) kids, do you think you need to do more of these (or less) or work through this differently. I listen to their thoughts and give them mine and try to ask questions to help them seethe right next step.

 

Learning to choose and recognizing that you have to do it all are very good skills to build in children. I am currently struggling with how to advise some fellow homeschool moms who just feel like if it is in the book they have to do it. They don't have time for some of the best things because they are doing too much(and more than they need) of the good things(or the mediocre things).

 

This is probably not helpful and certainly isn't a quick fix but I'll add it to this discussion anyway.

 

Kendall

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One thing that can really help with Giancoli is that the problems are marked with a difficulty level.

 

If he is working through Giancoli with the intent of taking the AP Physics B test, then he will need to work a lot of level II problems (and some level I problems just because those are easier and will let him know he's on the right track before tackling the level II problems). If he is not planning on the AP Physics B test, then he can work primarily the level I problems and just occasional level II problems.

 

I will say that it is extremely helpful to work through all the example problems in the chapter. The practice questions on the companion website are also quite helpful to work through as a check of understanding.

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When you say your son wants time off as a reward for finishing early, what granularity are you talking about? Finish the day's assignment in 20 minutes and have a half-hour to do something else? Finish the week's assignments by Thursday to get Friday off? Finish the month's assignments by the 18th and get a week off?

 

I think that setting expectations is going to be a part of making a plan you can live with. The farther out you have to plan, the harder it is to estimate exactly how long things will take. If you say, here is the work for the next month, and one month you underestimate and the next month you over-estimate how long things will take, then you can't get that week of playing back to catch up. On the other hand, the goal of finishing the week's work by Thursday to get Friday off is a good motivator, as long as you grade frequently enough that he can't rush through things with sloppy work.

 

When my kids finish something that is supposed to take an hour in 20 minutes and want extra free time right then, that is always a disaster at my house. Whatever they run off to do (art, writing, programming, etc.) turns out to be impossible to pull them away when it's time to get back to work. So now, when things get finished early, we start the next subject a little early and finish for the day early.

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I do not think that the problem selection required for mastery has anything to do with the student's age. You need a set of problems that cover all the concepts and all the types of problems the student needs to master, and have enough repetition. So, I would recommend starting with somebody else's schedule and see how things go. Only somebody with experience will be able to make a representative problem selection that meets the learning objective; without the physics knowledge, it is impossible to judge the difficulty and see what precisely the problem is meant to teach by just reading the problem description.

If he is unable to master the concepts with this amount, you can always add more practice.

 

I agree with Regentrude. A good teacher won't just assign every second problem (like virtually all my high school math teachers did :p) but will have gone through the text and carefully chosen a representative selection of problems that cover all the skills.

 

But that doesn't help much with your problem, does it? :)

 

This tends to be the same kind of problem that I have with the humanities. I have NO idea how long reading/discussing/writing about a particular book or a particular time period should take and I'm a "plan the entire year the summer before" kind of homeschooler. I do tweak and change throughout the year based on how things are going but my dd is like your son - she really likes to know what she needs to do and she is a "do-it-all" kind of kid, too. For subjects where I have absolutely no idea, I find schedules done by others who do have an idea. :) This is why I think that the sharing that occurs on this board is so amazingly, wonderfully fantastic. :D My dd is also learning to come to me if she's been working on a particular task/chapter/assignment for an extraordinarily long time to ask if she necessarily needs to do it all or if there are parts of it she can skip or cover later. In history, for example, we use History Odyssey. At the beginning of the year, I take the number of lessons and divide it by the number of weeks. As a former classroom teacher, I know this is NOT the way to do things but, like you say, short of doing all the assignments myself, it's difficult to know that Lesson Y takes 5x as long as Lesson X did. Sometimes just looking at the number/types of tasks in a lesson doesn't give an accurate picture. With weekly planning, I can say to dd that she needs to cover 3 lessons per week - if the first lesson takes 3 days worth of history time and the second and third can both be done in one day, it all works out. If it happens that all 3 lessons take multiple days each, I can just look ahead - usually, it evens out after 2 or 3 weeks so that even though 3 lessons took longer than 1 week, 6 lessons fit nicely into 2 weeks or 9 lessons could get done in 3 weeks. Does that makes sense? Basically, lesson plans or schedules by others in the know are a good thing (to quote Martha Stewart :D).

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A sample high school syllabus:

http://www.warrensch...AP-PhysicsB.pdf

 

What could be included in an Hons Physics course and guidelines on how problems are expected to be solved -- for my DS, just learning to present his answers clearly, with correct units etc, is hard work!:

http://www.montgomer...icsSyllabus.pdf

 

Some info from physicsforums on how many problems to assign:

http://www.physicsfo...ad.php?t=524117

 

A good all-in-one site for pacing, lab and other info:

http://apphysicsb.homestead.com/ (click on links here for weekly pacing)

 

Derek Owens's syllabus:

http://www.derekowen...usPhysicsDL.pdf

Derek has designed his course to include 13 chapters.

He typically poses about 4-6 problems in each homework problem set. There are usually 4-8 homework sheets per chapter so depending on the chapter you could have about 15-30 questions at least. Just rough figures here, too lazy to check all of DS's homework sheets.

He poses about 15-20 questions (aprox 8-10 MCQ, others free response problems) per chapter test

And there are also practice problems for each chapter unit that DS completes before doing the homework, lab and test

Two semester exams in addition to all of the above and each semester exam will also include a whole bunch of review questions/ problem sets.

 

ETA: Ruth, it would be really helpful to others if you could tag this thread with Giancoli, AP physics, physics etc.

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You want him to practice each concept to mastery, so demonstration of mastery seems a good stopping rule. Are you using a book with accompanying quizzes or problems? If so, set a rule that he moves on to the next chapter when he has correctly answered 80-90%. If not, you can construct the "test" yourself by pulling problems from the book. If he passes he is done. If not he reviews his errors and goes back to practicing. When my son gets stuck on a math topic, I will sometimes send him off to Khan to do problems until the site says he has achieved mastery.

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I've been using Dolores Gende's site (quark's fourth link) to get an idea for pacing and assignments using Giancoli.

 

I heartily recommend Delores Gende's site if you decide to go with the Giancoli textbook. Her problem lists are very reasonable & led to fantastic mastery for my ds when he followed her lesson plans.

 

As for pacing with a young, independent worker, I do work alongside and observe my student for the first few weeks. Then, when I have an idea of his or her rate of mastery, I make up lesson plans continuing at that rate for the next time period.

 

My son also liked having finite weekly goals to meet. Just be willing to adjust during the year if things change. :001_smile:

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Sorry for such a long delay in replying. I have been sunk in the science fair for the past few days.

 

I hope you don't mind putting all the responses in one thread. Seemed a bit more efficient..... Except it won't take it, so two posts it is....

 

I outsourced physics with Derek Owens for this very reason.

 

I keep thinking no, but I think it is time to take a long hard look. Thanks for mentioning it.

 

Regentrude has some physics syllabai posted that give homework assignments. There are 3-7 per lesson, nothing like the 60-70 at the end of the book.

I still found those to be a bit of a stretch at times. We had to spend some time searching the Internet for simar problems to figure out what we were forgetting to include.

I have already downloaded and printed all of Regentrude's material! What a wonderful resource! I have not made the decision on texts yet, but Giancoli is in my library, so I have had an easier time looking at it. I have Knight on my tablet, but it is really a pain to see it that way. I would love to hold it!

 

I find it very interesting that 3-7 per lesson is a stretch at times. Very interesting. Plus needing to look stuff up. I need a really good solutions manual. That might just decide which text I use, which ever one has the better solutions manual.

 

Just to say about Giancoli, I don't know what math your son is doing...Mine tried to do it concurrently with Algebra II but he hadn't really done enough problems to make him really fluid...

Boy, if my ds has trouble with the math, I will LOVE it. Time for him to be challenged! But all kidding aside, I don't think math will be a problem.

 

I do not think that the problem selection required for mastery has anything to do with the student's age. ...... You can always adjust the difficulty by giving more time.

I do find that as he gets older, he works faster. So I am thinking more about scheduling difficulties that I might have with using a schedule written for an older student, rather than difficulties with the problem selection.

 

Thanks again so much for the google docs you have provided!

 

You need a set of problems that cover all the concepts and all the types of problems the student needs to master, and have enough repetition. So, I would recommend starting with somebody else's schedule and see how things go. Only somebody with experience will be able to make a representative problem selection that meets the learning objective; without the physics knowledge, it is impossible to judge the difficulty and see what precisely the problem is meant to teach by just reading the problem description.

I would completely agree with this.

 

but a teacher in a classroom can't tailor each assignment for each child.

This is a very good point.

 

This isn't a quick fix and you are probably doing this already, but you could teach/model/coach him to do this himself. Talk through why you have assigned problems the way you have. Think aloud to him about why you decided he should not work linearly, what you have decided to do instead. Model for him that thinking process. Over time he may begin to do some of this himself and you can coach him along the way by asking questions.

Yes! This is exactly what I need to do. Yes. yes. yes.

 

If he is working through Giancoli with the intent of taking the AP Physics B test, then he will need to work a lot of level II problems (and some level I problems just because those are easier and will let him know he's on the right track before tackling the level II problems). If he is not planning on the AP Physics B test, then he can work primarily the level I problems and just occasional level II problems.

No AP in NZ. My goal is to get him to take the NZ equivalent of the SAT2 test and use that to gain entrance into a university physics class. My ds still wants to be a theoretical physicist, so my guess is that he will want to be working on the level III problems. This class will be a passion to him. I expect he will go way beyond what is required. Thanks for reminding me of the companion website.

 

Can you tell me what to do with "General Problems" in Giancoli? The syllabus that Kathy linked to does not assign any of them, but the note to teachers at the beginning of the book recommends a few each chapter.

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When you say your son wants time off as a reward for finishing early, what granularity are you talking about?

He wants 10 to 20 minutes off to work on his music.

 

think that setting expectations is going to be a part of making a plan you can live with. The farther out you have to plan, the harder it is to estimate exactly how long things will take. If you say, here is the work for the next month, and one month you underestimate and the next month you over-estimate how long things will take, then you can't get that week of playing back to catch up.

Very good points here. I usually plan out how much per month to finish in a year, and then divide up into weekly requirements. He does very well when I tell him to do 1 section per day. When I am doing a class with him (like AoPS number theory), I can figure out when a section is short and assign 2 or 3 sections for a day. He likes this. But it looks to me like he will need to be managing his own time if I won't be doing the class with him. The main problem is that he can handle AP Physics, but still has the personality/organizational skills of a 12 year old. Kind of a problem. Very asynchronous.

 

My dd is also learning to come to me if she's been working on a particular task/chapter/assignment for an extraordinarily long time to ask if she necessarily needs to do it all or if there are parts of it she can skip or cover later. In history, for example, we use History Odyssey. At the beginning of the year, I take the number of lessons and divide it by the number of weeks. As a former classroom teacher, I know this is NOT the way to do things but, like you say, short of doing all the assignments myself, it's difficult to know that Lesson Y takes 5x as long as Lesson X did. Sometimes just looking at the number/types of tasks in a lesson doesn't give an accurate picture. With weekly planning, I can say to dd that she needs to cover 3 lessons per week - if the first lesson takes 3 days worth of history time and the second and third can both be done in one day, it all works out. If it happens that all 3 lessons take multiple days each, I can just look ahead - usually, it evens out after 2 or 3 weeks so that even though 3 lessons took longer than 1 week, 6 lessons fit nicely into 2 weeks or 9 lessons could get done in 3 weeks. Does that makes sense? Basically, lesson plans or schedules by others in the know are a good thing (to quote Martha Stewart :D).

I think this is exactly what I will need to do. Use a pre-provided schedule, break it up, and then adjusts/adapt every day. He is pretty good about this with AoPS geometry. Some sections take him 2 days, other sections 20 minutes. But given that he is 12, the sections that take him 2 days, he is happy to split into 2 days, but the sections that take 20 minutes he is happy to put the book away rather than continuing to work. :huh: So perhaps, I just need to over schedule him each and every day. :D

 

A sample high school syllabus....etc.

Thanks for all the resources, Quark!

 

You want him to practice each concept to mastery, so demonstration of mastery seems a good stopping rule. Are you using a book with accompanying quizzes or problems? If so, set a rule that he moves on to the next chapter when he has correctly answered 80-90%. If not, you can construct the "test" yourself by pulling problems from the book. If he passes he is done. If not he reviews his errors and goes back to practicing. When my son gets stuck on a math topic, I will sometimes send him off to Khan to do problems until the site says he has achieved mastery.

This is so obvious, and I just had not considered it. I think it is an excellent idea. We have not really done any testing yet, with the exception of music performance exams. I started teaching him how to study using Chemistry with the plan of having him take the Cambridge exam this year, but then the Math Olympiad idea happened, and he has been full focus on that. But that exam is not really a mastery type of exam -- it is a 1 month proof based exam where he is likely to only get 1/2 of the questions right. So point being, I think it is an excellent idea to have him evaluate the need for more problems by needing to study for a test.

 

As for pacing with a young, independent worker, I do work alongside and observe my student for the first few weeks. Then, when I have an idea of his or her rate of mastery, I make up lesson plans continuing at that rate for the next time period.

Yes. This is an excellent point. I did this when he hit proofs in geometry, and when he started taking notes in chemistry. I should definitely do it again, thanks for the reminder. As I asked above, do you know why the site you used does not every require the "general problems"?

 

 

Thanks so much everyone! you have given me lots of wonderful advice.

 

Ruth in NZ

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As I asked above, do you know why the site you used does not every require the "general problems"?

 

 

Ruth in NZ

 

 

Perhaps Ms. Gende uses the general problems, or their equivalent, during the class time? That's what I'm considering-----just one to maybe two each day.

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Ruth,

I'm going to assume that you have seen websites like this one:

http://wps.prenhall....9.cw/index.html

 

I taught AP Physics from Giancoli way back-in-the-day. I *think* I remember that the General Problems were designed to cover several chapters' worth of material...even covering material in other units. But I have had several kids since then, so who knows! It seems that I would occasionally assign one or two of those problems to my students, but we were always on such a frenzied schedule to cover so much material in so little time, that we couldn't investigate and enjoy like your son may be able to do. This was a serious downfall of the AP Physics B syllabus...which is why, I guess, the College Board has decided to split it into two years (which is fodder for another thread which I may make at some point).

 

When I googled "Giancoli Physics Principles with Applications", I found lots of information about solutions...including one teacher who has videotaped solutions to many of the problems in the text. You can rent these for a monthly fee. I have no idea if this is a quality product...I didn't even look at the sample, but it did sound interesting.

http://www.giancolianswers.com/

 

I used the published Giancoli solutions manual when I taught, and it was sufficient for my needs at that time. However, I may find that I need more hand-holding when my older ds hits physics year-after-next, so I will be following this thread with interest.

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As I asked above, do you know why the site you used does not every require the "general problems"?

 

The only difference between Giancoli's "Problems" & "General Problems" is that the latter aren't keyed by difficulty & section of the chapter they're based upon. The author states that their overall difficulty level is similar to his other problems. I occasionally threw one into my assignment sets if I found a particularly interesting one, but I preferred the Problem sets where I could assign a good mix of level I, II, & III problems in advance without having to work them out on my own first to see which were more time-consuming. A good use IMO for the General set would be end-of-year review or SAT exam study. Like most modern texts, there are simply too many problems. I don't think that you'd lose anything at all in this text by skipping that particular set.

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I've only used Giancoli, not Knight, so I can't compare the two.

 

The Giancoli solution manual is very good. It does clearly show how the problems are worked out. It does not EXPLAIN why the problems are worked out that way, but no solution manual for a regular textbook is going to explain why because the expectation is that the teacher is familiar with subject and already knows why.

 

I did find a few errors in my solution manual, but they were obvious errors because the numbers used in the solution were completely different from the numbers provided in the problem.

 

I only assign from the problem section because they are labeled with difficulty and broken down by section. That way I can easily assign a range of problems that cover the material. I do two lessons/week and generally assign 5 problems each time.

 

This time around, none of my students opted for the AP Physics B test, but they are taking the SAT subject test. We finished the material 3 weeks ago and have been working on review since then. I am reviewing two chapters each lesson. We go through the concept questions (VERY NICE to have with wonderful explanations, on the Instructor Resource cds) and I have them work through the practice questions for each chapter on the companion website. There are often a few that I tell them to skip because they cover material that is not on the subject test and we are working specifically on prep for the subject test now.

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Ruth,

 

It wasn't that the 3-7 problems were too many. It really boiled down to a couple factors.

 

Even though they had finished algebra 1 and a basic introduction to trig, they just did not have a good feel for how to set up problems that required manipulating sin and cos (example incline plane problems). I think I let them be way more independent on their readings and assignments than I should have been. Instead of relying on the Mastering Physics problem sets to show them what they were doing wrong, I should have made them work out problems in front of me.

 

We really were not diligent in putting in the time to master this subject. Physics on top of algebra 2 on top of Latin on top of German on top of literature on top of history just made for a tougher week than I thought when I made up the schedule. Add in 2-3 hours of swimming five days a week and the fatigue that creates (in both student and mom) and it was way too easy to let things slide if there wasn't a specific due date. Latin and literature assignments got done because there was an outside schedule to meet. Other subjects slid.

 

So while I like the Knight book, it was the wrong choice for us this year. We'll be going through the whole summer to finish enough that I can honorably put physics on the transcript and hopefully take an SAT Subject test in the fall. But I'm taking a step back for chemistry. I really need to take a year to teach them how to be good science students (read the chapter, take notes, work the sample problems, do the homework, look for clarification on problem concepts, do a lab). That is a better lesson for us right now.

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