Relearning University Physics I - Get Comprehensive Help

[drewdiddy]

I am currently in University Physics I. I get the ideas but I'm not where I want to be overall in the class. It takes me way too long to grasp the concepts and then apply them. My Prof is a first year Prof and every student complains about his teaching, i.e. it sucks. In addition to this I live in southeast Texas so Hurricane Ike canceled school for 2 weeks and we're playing catch-up at a rate of a chapter a class.

What I need to do is effectively relearn everything from scratch and was wondering where you guys would recommend I start. Preferably a comprehensive site with all the basics explained in detail or videos perhaps? I've repeatedly read the sections in my text and for some reason or another it's just not sticking, I feel like I maybe need a different perspective than the one offered in my book. All help is appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Peeter]

As somebody who is relearning things now (but is not taking any courses and has the luxury of taking time to do it), I can tell you my strategy.

Find the very first thing that is not sticking, or something that you have to memorize a formula to be able to deal with. Identify the part of it that you don't understand, and thoroughly figure out just that one part (work lots of examples!). If you can't get it, there's probably something else more fundamental, so identify that bit and start over. I found I had to go back to algebra and basic calculus doing this, but after about a year am slowly working my way back up the ladder.

Personally I've also found that it helps me a lot to write up notes for many of the of topics I'm studying as if I'm trying to explain things to others (I have a mini-textbook of erratic subjects now;) If I can't explain it, then there is something I don't understand, and this helps identify it.