regentrude - is your mailbox full?

[Sunshine State Sue]

I tried to send this in a PM, but it wouldn't let me.  So, here I go out in public. :blushing:

 

Last week, I started a physics class at the CC.  I have a degree in math and would like to prove to myself that I am capable of passing an algebra-based physics class.  After 1 week, I'm hanging in there.

 

Our lab instructor is new to college teaching.  He recently retired after a career as a nuclear engineer.  He is nice enough.  Last Wednesday, he handed out our lab scripts and we worked on the lab.  There are only 3 students in the lab.  Me (54yo) and 2 young people.  The girl is studying for MCAT and leaves ASAP.  The boy is fairly intelligent and quick.  I feel old and slow, but that's okay.

 

We have a lab report to write up.  I hate writing.  I spent the vast majority of the day on it yesterday.  Part of the lab report is Error Analysis.  The lab script has some information about random errors, systemic errors, and blunders.  I don't really understand it. 

 

Here is my question.  Would a better physics instructor have spent some lab time teaching about errors before he unleashed his students to write about them?

 

Thanks for your insight!

[Twigs]

:bigear:

[JanetC]

In response to your original question: The script should have been made available for you to read before the lab session so you could ask any questions necessary while the instructor was there. For more complex labs, it's really hard to read the directions on the same day you are setting up and doing the work.

 

Not regentrude, but this is my favorite website for lab report guidance...  http://www.ncsu.edu/labwrite/po/po-homepage.htm(That is the link to the post-lab write up tab, but at the top there are pre-lab and in-lab tabs across the top of the page as well.)

[Sunshine State Sue]

I had actually sent an email to the instructor the afternoon prior to the lab asking if the lab instructions were anywhere because he had said that we should be prepared for the lab beforehand, but he didn't check his email.  He realized that they should be out there, so hopefully he will figure out how to make that happen.

 

Thanks for the for the link.  I will check it out.