Physics 103: Honors Conceptual Physics

I took Physics 103 with Dr. Donnelly during my spring semester in 2019. I was more nervous to take this course than any other during my time at Longwood, but it turned out to be one of my favorite classes.

Science has never been my favorite subject because it did not come easy to me. The idea of ever having to take a physics course scared me because I assumed I would never grasp the concepts being taught. Because of this, I avoided physics at all costs in high school and was extremely nervous up until my first day of class with Dr. Donnelly.

One of the biggest take-aways from this course is how much a teacher’s attitude about a subject can influence the attitudes of the students. Dr. Donnelly never wanted to hear us say that we did not like science because we were not good at it. This, along with seeing how passionate Dr. Donnelly was every day in class helped to change my outlook on science and make me look forward to this class.

Physics 103 was one of my favorite courses because instead of only taking notes, we had many hands-on activities. With a small class size, we were able to take breaks during lectures to participate in short hands-on activities that reinforced what we just learned in lecture. All of the labs in the class were directly related to what we had talked about a few days prior which gave us an opportunity to continue practicing what we were learning. These breaks during lectures and entire labs helped me better understand the content for the class because the information was being presented in various ways. Many of the labs and activities we did in class could also be used in an elementary school classroom which made the course more interesting for me because I am going into education.

While this class was an introductory class and geared to future teachers, I was challenged every class period. For one of our exams, Dr. Donnelly wanted to test out a more challenging short answer question. She made this a group exam and broke the class into groups and gave us the question before hand so we could have time to prepare our answers. The question required us to research different airplanes and consider different aspects of flights to determine how to improve the flight. This was a challenging question because there were so many aspects about the flight in general to consider, as well as various topics from physics to incorporate in order to solve the problem. While during the course, this assignment was stressful, it allowed me to practice creative thinking and problem solving with a group. I have attached a copy of the response my group submitted for this question.