Advanced Level H2 Physics Chapter 1 Measurements - Framework of Concepts (In Progress)

Before I plan my lessons and assessment and what I want to teach for Physics, I tend to write down a framework of concepts for my lessons.  I looks similar to the syllabus but more in detail as I tend to break it down further into skills and specific concepts that I want to teach.  Decided to document them here and add on it and hope it will be useful to all.

If you think that I have missed out anything points and wish to add on, do leave your comments and I will look into it.

Topic 1 Measurements

The topic of measurements consists of 4 main subtopics:

1.1 Physical Quantities and Units
1.2 Errors and Uncertainties
1.3 Scalars and Vectors
1.4 Orders of Magnitude

1.1 Framework of Concepts and Skills for Physical Quantities and Units

1.2 Errors and Uncertainties- 2 Feb 2015

For Physics at A-levels, the treatment of errors and uncertainties is simplistic and yet difficult for students.  We do not do standard deviations and variance in Physics but get students to understand that quantities that are measured have some inherent uncertainty in them and these errors propagate to the calculations and hence there are inherent errors even in derived values.

The rules to get the uncertainties are rather straightforward, however as they are not derived for students, students do not understand that these are therefore just estimates.  For my classes I tend to do the derivations with them and then also look into other methods for determining the uncertainties e.g. calculus and statistics to broaden their horizon.  

They is the first part where students themselves realize that there are no standard answers, like in secondary school, for Physics.  Many stump at the qualitative parts as tutors (and examiners) give contextual questions where often experiments and results are shown and students are expected to identify systematic and random errors.  Most give very generic answers not pertaining to the question or fail to explain why the error they have identified is a systematic or random one and hence often do not gain credit.  Assessment of the contextual question can be done either in main paper or practical paper.

1.3 Vectors and Scalars - 2 Feb 2015