Course Evaluation Results
On January 15, 2026, students were asked to complete an evaluation of this course and teacher. In this form they indicated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with twenty-three statements, and had the opportunity to submit written comments on six additional questions. Evaluations were performed in-class and submitted anonymously via a web-based evaluation form.
Many thanks to my students for their honest feedback on these forms.
The results of the "multiple-choice" responses are summarized here. Values in parentheses, where presented, indicate averages from the previous year.
| STATEMENT: | AVERAGE RESPONSE (n=20) 5-Strongly Agree 4-Agree 3-Neutral 2-Disagree 1-Strongly Disagree |
| 4. I enjoy taking this class. | 4.05 (4.29, 4.54, 4.33, 4.63, 4.33, 4.27) |
| 5. I learn a lot in this class. | 4.40 (4.79, 4.85, 4.83, 4.38, 4.87, 4.80) |
| 6. The information in this class will be useful in the future. | 3.80 (3.79, 4.38, 4.06, 3.88, 3.79, 3.87) |
| 7. This class is difficult for me. | 3.75 (4.43, 4.23, 4.12, 3.88, 4.00, 4.07) |
| 8. This class has a lot of homework. | 3.10 (3.54, 3.77, 3.18, 3.38, 3.40, 3.40) |
| 9. I complete homework assignments regularly. | 4.05 (4.57, 4.31, 4.71, 4.38, 4.67, 4.93) |
| 10. The textbook in this class is useful to me. | 3.44 (3.38, 3.77, 3.17, 3.38, 3.60, 4.07, 4.00, 3.44, 3.63) |
| 11. The teacher in this class is useful to me. | 4.35 (4.85, 4.77, 4.72, 4.63, 4.87, 4.67) |
| 12. The teacher demonstrates enthusiasm for the subject. | 4.85 (4.79, 4.92, 5.00, 4.75, 5.00, 4.80, 5.00, 4.78, 4.97) |
| 13. The teacher is respectful of students. | 4.20 (4.64, 4.46, 4.44, 4.63, 4.93, 4.53, 4.94, 4.56, 4.63) |
| 14. The teacher wants me to succeed. | 4.70 (4.43, 4.54, 4.72, 4.88, 4.80, 4.60) |
| 15. The teacher presents course material in a clear, straightforward manner. | 4.20 (4.15, 4.54, 4.59, 4.38, 4.60, 4.40) |
| 16. The teacher presents course material using variety of techniques. | 4.05 (4.00, 4.38, 4.41, 4.13, 3.53, 4.00) |
| 17. The teacher checks to ensure that students understand the material. | 4.00 (3.85, 4.31, 4.18, 4.13, 4.00, 4.40) |
| 18. The teacher is available outside of class for individual help. | 4.65 (4.46, 4.69, 4.47, 4.38, 4.71, 4.53) |
| 19. Class time is used effectively. | 4.05 (4.08, 4.62, 4.18, 4.00, 4.33, 4.27) |
| 20. Course objectives are clearly stated. | 4.25 (4.25, 4.23, 4.29, 4.38, 4.43, 4.40) |
| 21. Grading criteria are clearly communicated. | 4.15 (4.00, 4.46, 4.22, 4.14, 4.47, 4.00) |
| 22. Assignments are meaningful and reflect the course objectives. | 4.35 (4.25, 4.38, 4.50, 4.29, 4.47, 4.40) |
| 23. The presentations (either PowerPoint-based or website-based) are useful to me outside of class. | 4.30 (4.38, 5.00, 4.28, 4.43, 4.87, 4.53, 3.69, 4.22, 4.00) |
| 24. The presentations (either PowerPoint-based or website-based) improve the quality of the teacher's lectures. | 4.37 (4.38, 4.69, 4.24, 4.13, 4.53, 4.67, 4.41, 4.22, 4.33) |
| 25. The presentations (either PowerPoint-based or website-based) are effective in helping me understand the material. | 4.26 (4.38, 4.67, 4.29, 4.00, 4.80, 4.60) |
| 27. For assistance in coursework, students who ask other students for help: | 16/20 |
| 27. For assistance, students who use office hours | 2/20 |
| 27. For assistance in coursework, students who search online for help: | 15/20 |
| 27. For assistance, students who refer to textbook | 10/20 |
| 27. For assistance, students who email instructor | 7/20 |
| 27. For assistance, students who ask a family member | 2/20 |
| 27. For assistance, students who ask a tutor | 1/20 |
Results from the "free response" questions are given here. Not all written comments have been listed, but the comments that are given are representative of what was received.
| 28. List a few of your favorite things about this class. |
Mr.White and friends! Experiments from Mr. White with the whole class! Like the pendulum one is really fun, I got real scared for a moment:D I really enjoy our labs, we have a lot of resources available to us to study/review, class demonstrations are helpful, Mr. White is a really nice and funny teacher. I find the labs and our class dynamic to be very fun. Classwide Labs (where one person takes data and we all work to solve it), the pacing of class, and lectures. I love the teacher and his attitude when teaching the class. The classroom atmosphere is very open, and I feel free to ask questions. I enjoy the labs in this class because they help reinforce my learning and are fun to figure out. I also like the amount of homework because it is both manageable and helps me to further understand the content. The teacher is pretty chill, and there isn't too much homework. I think the atmosphere and vibe of this class is actually pretty good. I know it can get noisy, but I think it's encouraging overall and is an environment where people do want to learn. One of my favorite things about this class is the root curve. I believe it helps students naturally succeed without the pressure of doing more work. Additionally, I think the labs are very productive and help me learn concepts in a different light. I love Mr. White's presentations. crashwhite is so cool and user-friendly. the classroom atmosphere is also friendly and chill, which I appreciate a lot. I really like how the curve this year is not based off on other students but on ourselves. I really appreciate how dedicated Mr White is to teaching his students. I really enjoy the in-class demonstrations. They make the class genuinely very interesting. I also enjoy Mr. White's personal stories, especially the one about him banging his head on his ex-girlfriend's car. I really appreciate how our class lectures are also available online; that way, if there is any misunderstanding in class, I can review exactly what we discussed at my own pace. I enjoy the labs since they're fun activities, and I get to work with Carolyn. The class atmosphere, although it can get rowdy sometimes, is funny. I really enjoy the labs that we do in this class. I think they provide a really good physical intuition that helps solidify concepts. I like how predictable our homework is as well as how much information is available for one unit. I enjoy how helpful and organized the website is in helping me review for a test, or even preview units ahead of time. Everything feels very structured. I really appreciate how we have the website to refer to when doing our homework or studying outside of class time. I also think you bring a good attitude to the class and try to make it fun. The homeworks take a reasonable amount of time. |
| 29. Which achievements in here are you most proud of for the year-to-date? |
Doing on my midterm achievements...definitely getting one question right! Having great results on all labs, completing all assignments on time, and my grade. I am most proud of learning LaTeX for the rolling objects lab. I had to learn close to a new programming language and being able to turn in my finished lab that looked good and reflected my learning was very rewarding. Getting a 97% on the midterm. I am very proud of my first 3 tests, and then it went downhill. But I am very proud of the final as well. I am proudest of the rolling objects lab because I designed an experiment from start to finish and completed a large report with it. My grades and test results, especially my midterm because I did not feel very confident right after I took the test, but after I got my grade back, I was very satisfied. I am pretty proud of the Rolling Objects Lab - I spent a lot of time on formatting and designing the lab, as well as putting the results together (I think the lab might be the single assignment at Poly that I have spent the most time on, perhaps more than my research papers for APUSH). I think it's really nice just to sit down once in a while and try to make a presentation look really nice and have all the information in a digestible manner that makes sense to the reader. Just like putting some effort into the actual project. I am proud of my first semester grade because it is reflective of all the hard work I have put in to succeed. I am most proud of my excellent impulse lab report. I really enjoyed sketching my set-up. I am really proud of how much effort I put into the labs even though some of them were really hard and took me a while to fully understand and grasp. It felt rewarding when it clicked while I was working through them. I did pretty well on some of the tests, and I am always proud of my labs. I am most proud of my time management. I think in the middle of the semester, I got really busy and failed to keep pace with the homework and class lectures. However, I think now I have found a good rhythm. The first three tests were my favorite moments in class. Seeing those beautiful grades brought me much joy. Then it went downhill. I was very proud of my consistency throughout the class. I did my best to not only master the physics but also the math behind it. Consistency and avoiding silly mistakes were previously a challenge for me, and I've worked against them. I'm happy about the effort I've put in to the labs in this class. Those reports have been fun to make and I feel like I learn most concepts best from labs. I'm also proud that there have been multiple times this semester where I bounced back from "meh" or "yeesh" scores on tests. I am most proud of my test results on the last few units since I was diligent in my reviewing and was able to understand things quite well. I am proud of my Rolling Objects Lab. I thought I really understood the material after spending so long on the lab report. I also learned how to write the equations in GoogleDocs which could be useful in the future. |
| 30. List a few of your least favorite things about this class. |
When class is canceled I don't like how populated the class is. It reduces my chance to interact with teacher and the whole class. We never know how to do the homework. It makes learning and remembering material so much harder, and review takes so much time because I can never do the homework, so I have to copy the answer key, and then we learn it all in the next class. We really should be caught up to the homework. I find some of the general physics topics to be a little boring. I understand they are necessary for later physics studies, but some of them are still a little tedious or just uninteresting. The Rolling Objects Lab (took a lot of time and felt like it was too many points). I do not like the assessments... they are very stressful and hard. I wish that we had spent some more time on the early material. I can't be on my computer. Sometimes my goal isn't to play video games and I actually want to do physics work. When I can't do that the course becomes very boring and hard for me to pay attention. Honestly not anything about the class, just my own understanding of it. I think the tests are awfully hard, and we could have benefited from some slightly easier tests, especially with this harder content coming up. Not too easy of course! My least favorite thing about this class is how the class kinda devolves into chaos sometimes. Or maybe how stressful the labs are. One of my least favorite things is how fast paced this class is, even though I knew what I was signing up for. It's a hard course, so the tests are always hard and unpleasant. Our class environment makes it hard to focus sometimes :) I think the practice tests are always easier than the actual test, so the actual test hits me like a truck. The least favorite thing about this class was very minor, but sometimes not everyone wants to work together for labs. That's fine for me because I like working with the same people anyway, but it does make the space feel less collaborative at times. The labs take a lot of time and are tedious when writing visuals and writing out sources of error. Sometimes the cold calling can be stressful. |
| 31. What has been most difficult or challenging for you up to this point? What strategies have you considered for meeting those challenges? |
nothing The class materials...Feel like the test is so much harder than the assignment and the amount of assignment just doesn't prepare us well enough. The tests sometimes have weird questions that we haven't looked at or are convoluted. First was getting sick and missing a test, which set me back. By the time I was better enough to take it, I had forgotten most of the material I studied. To fix it, though, I could have studied more for the test to make sure I was truly ready for it. When I haven't done the practice tests before taking a unit test. I think the most challenging thing is the tests, but I have been using khan academy and meeting with Mr. Rosato to learn all the Calculus that I do not know. Some of the tests have been challenging for me, so I have tried to use all of my resources to prepare for other tests. Paying attention in class. I have tried to use my computer to get some mental stimulation going. I am really bad at physics. I think one thing that is different is I just don't really have a background in it/it isn't the thing that makes the most sense to me. I'm not too sure why, as I feel I'm pretty good at calculus and multivariable as well as other scientific disciplines, but I think it's just fully comprehending the material. I also think a lot of it is just the cumulativeness that sort of compounds it? I think mainly it's just more practice, etc. and probably I need to do some more homework problems/similar types of problems just to get familiar. // // When approaching problems, the biggest problem I have I think is digesting it and knowing what equation to use/strategy. I can do the actual mechanics of the calculations, but I think it's just the set up that is difficult. I think that a lot of the challenges in this class are just a result of the content, and, in order to combat this, effort and studying are required. I have implemented new study techniques, watched lectures, done practice problems, and more, all to improve my standing in this class. For me, the most difficult thing has been writing the lab reports, and to address this, I've been getting started on them earlier and referencing my well-done labs as an example. I think because the tests were really different from the practice tests, I felt like the tests were really challenging for me. I appreciate this, though, as it forces me to learn how to apply the topics I learn and not just regurgitate strategies. Understanding the material is always the most difficult for me. I have tried coming to Chipotle at night, but it never really works for me. When I missed some classes for a couple of units, those were the tests that I struggled with the most, as I had to catch up and learn material on my own. In the future, I will likely email my teacher or schedule meetings to review the material I missed, ensuring my understanding. The unit on rotational and angular velocity. Not my best moment. Being sick combined with my not understanding a key concept about rotational inertia during a test was by far my worst moment in this course. I've taken more precautions not to get sick and have realized that I should study in advance for topics that I know will be hard for me. I have struggled with time management for completing labs, and I hope to get started on them when they are assigned in order to help me be on top of things better. The material usually builds on itself. When I have had trouble in past units it has affected my performance on future tests. I try to do practice problems even if they are from earlier units on the topics I struggle with. |
| 32. Suggest some improvements to make the class better. |
keep being u Great so far! The tests are kinda hard so maybe more prep before the test? More practice in class, I get that it is harder with such a big class, but still. I can't think of any improvements to make. Maybe update the practice tests to match the difficulty of the real tests because the AP test got harder. I don't have any suggestions. Allow computer use. More desks, preferably for the number of people in our class. I am not sure there are any structural or systemic changes to be made at this point. It is a really well-run class and is working well. I suggest making people who don't engage as often speak up. I feel like an equal distribution of student volunteers could help everyone feel more inclined to pay attention. More demonstrations, please! No cold calling in class, please! It's difficult material, and not everyone is in the same place in understanding, so it makes the practice questions a little stressful. Making the level of difficulty of the practice tests more like the actual test. I think that this class is really great. The only suggestion I have is to have more labs (even though we already have a lot). This might not be useful, but I do like learning more about the history behind certain concepts we learn in this class. I remember I appreciated why we were learning about gravitation much more after I watched the Caltech video on it in class. Maybe make some weight of the first semester carry over to motivate students to end the first semester well. I can't think of anything that should be changed. |
| 33. Other comments? |
no worries! Thank you! It's still been fun! I have none! We should go get class matcha. I dislike the subject, but the teacher makes the class bearable Would projects help the students understand the material, too? I've really enjoyed our first semester doing mechanics, and I look forward to E and M second semester ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ // This is a really well-planned and fun class. |