Physics 232C Announcements

 

August 7,, 2012

PHY 232C reminder: Your final exam note sheets MUST be original and handwritten

The final exam will be on TUESDAY, August 14th from 4:30PM until 6:30PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) room 1410 or BPS room 1415. The room location is determined alphabetically by your last name.

If your last name is alphabetically between A and NGU, your exam will be in BPS 1410. If your last name is alphabetically between NIC and ZZ, you exam will be in room BPS 1415. There will be a seating chart on the screen at the front of the room and you should sit in the row designated by your last name. Sit only in even numbered seats; students seated in odd numbered seats will have to move before the exam is handed out.

The exam is closed book, but you may use two 8-1/2 inch x 11 inch or smaller sheets of original hand-written notes and equations. If you are using notes, these notes *MUST* be original and hand written. As stated in the syllabus, photocopied, typed or computer generated notes are not permitted. If you do not have original, hand-written notes for the exam, you will have to take the exam without notes. You may use both sides of your note sheets.

Richard Hallstein

 

July 30, 2012

The final exam will be on TUESDAY, August 14th from 4:30PM until 6:30PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) room 1410 or BPS room 1415. The room location is determined alphabetically by your last name.

If your last name is alphabetically between A and NGU, your exam will be in BPS 1410. If your last name is alphabetically between NIC and ZZ, you exam will be in room BPS 1415. There will be a seating chart on the screen at the front of the room and you should sit in the row designated by your last name. Sit only in even numbered seats; students seated in odd numbered seats will have to move before the exam is handed out.

The exam will be handed out promptly at 4:30PM; students arriving after 4:30PM will not be permitted to enter the room until after the students who arrived promptly have started the exam.

The exam is comprehensive. Good places to concentrate your studying efforts are the weekly exams, the practice exams and the homework. Some of the problems will be conceptual in nature and some will have numerical answers. There are 100 possible points on the exam. On the day of the final exam, TAs assigned specifically to this course will be in the help room from noon until 3:30PM.

The exam is closed book, but you may use two 8-1/2 inch x 11 inch or smaller sheets of original hand-written notes and equations. If you are using notes, these notes *MUST* be original and hand written. As stated in the syllabus, photocopied, typed or computer generated notes will not be permitted. If you do not have original hand-written notes for the exam, you will have to take the exam without notes. You may use both sides of your note sheets.

You should bring a few sharpened number 2 pencils, your student ID (or driver’s license) and a calculator (graphing calculators are OK). However, the use of cell phones, PDAs or computers for any reason is NOT permitted. Pencils and calculators will NOT be provided. Also, as a courtesy to your fellow students, you should turn off all cell phones and pagers before entering the room.

When you enter the room, pick up a bubble seat and sit in the row assigned to you based on your last name (seating assignments will be displayed on the screen at the front of the room). The exam will be handed out once all students arriving promptly are in their assigned rows. DO NOT open the exam until you are told to do so by an instructor. You can however, complete the student information section of your answer sheet. Make sure you include your student ID number and your name on the answer sheet. Make certain that your exam has your name and picture on the cover sheet – if it does not, you have the wrong exam! When you are finished with the exam return both your answer sheet and your exam to an instructor or a TA.

The cover page for the exam will contain the same information as the cover pages on each of the weekly exams.

There are 30 responses on this exam.

Richard Hallstein

July 17, 2012

PHY 232C reminder: off-campus proctored final exam arrangement deadline 7/24/2012

Dear PHY 232C students,
If you are living or traveling far from MSU on the date of the final exam (August 14), you can arrange to take your exam with an appropriate proctor at or near your location. You must have a travel time of greater than one hour in order to qualify for an off-campus exam. The deadline for getting me your proctor’s information is July 24 at 5PM – one week from today. If I do not have your proctor’s contact information prior to this deadline, you will have to take the exam here at MSU on August 14th at the scheduled time. Arrangement details and the deadline are in the final exam section of the syllabus.

http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2012summer/phy232c/

Richard Hallstein

July 5, 2012

Dear PHY 231C students,

The first online 40 minute weekly exam will be available for you to take between 6:00PM tomorrow (Friday) and 3:00PM on Saturday.  No extensions or modifications of this time window will be given.  Much of this information is covered in the syllabus, but I will restate it here.
1.            Once you open the weekly exam folder you will have 40 minutes plus 5 minutes for connection/transmission of your responses.
2.            Once you have entered the exam folder, you should not attempt to navigate out of the folder to other areas of Lon-Capa. Leaving the folder or exiting Lon-Capa will not stop the timer.  If you leave Lon-Capa immediately after opening the exam folder, the return to the folder 30 minutes later you will have 15 minutes left to complete the exam.  In addition, leaving the folder will result in a time delay before the weekly exam folder will redisplay for responses (roughly 5 seconds, possibly more). 
3.            There are ten multiple choice questions on the exam.  The procedure you follow to submit an answer is identical to the procedure outlined in homework question 1.  In fact, this specific question is the first question on the exam and it is the only syllabus related question.
4.            It is a requirement for this course that you have a reliable, high-speed internet connection. If your connection is slow or not reliable and you are unable to finish the exam as a result, you will have to use this exam as your one dropped weekly exam.
5.            I strongly advise that you construct a set of notes on a single 5 inch by 8 inch card when completing each weekly exam. These note cards should be sufficient to assist you on the weekly exam and will help you put together the two note sheets you are permitted to use on the final exam. You should not attempt to search the internet, Lon-Capa or through texts for solutions to the weekly exam problems -- this will almost certainly result in running out of time to complete the exam. In addition, the weekly exams should be done individually – they should not be done as a group project. You will not have access to any of these resources for the final exam and students who have practiced these techniques in the past tend to do very poorly on the final exam.
6.            Correct/incorrect feedback is disabled. The number of tries per problem is set to 20, so you can change your mind and resubmit an answer to a question. The last submission you make on a question will be your official response
7.            You can find additional general information about the weekly exams here:
http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2012summer/PHY232C/Exams/Exams.htm
8.            In addition to the aforementioned first question, the material covered on this first weekly exam is based on the material covered in the first two online lecture sets, the associated readings from the required text and/or homework set 1.
9.            The first six questions on practice exam 1 are related to the material covered on this first weekly exam. 

Richard Hallstein

 

June 27

Welcome to the summer 2012 session of PHY 232C,


You are receiving this message because you are enrolled in PHY 232C section 730 or section 731. This message will be re-sent on July 2.

I realize this message is long, but you should read it carefully and in detail.  It is part of the syllabus and is copied in the announcement section of the syllabus for your reference.
We will cover all material usually covered in a 15 week course in a little over six weeks.  This course runs only in the first summer session starting on July 2 and finishing with the final exam on August 14.  In general, there are two homework sets due each week with a timed online exam given at the end of each week.

First off, let me briefly go over my philosophy for the course.  Getting good at doing physics will require some practice.  You can get this practice by working, and at times, struggling through the assigned homework problems.  You should complete the assigned readings and watch the online lectures prior to attempting these problems.   You should find some of the problems fairly straightforward and others a bit more challenging.  Please be patient and give a good effort to solve these problems before seeking assistance.   I emphasize the importance of practicing physics via working out these homework problems with the relative weight of the homework to your final grade.  It contributes 25% to your final grade.  These homework problems are meant to prepare you to successfully complete the weekly online exams.  The weekly exams should be taken individually, with a short set of notes and a calculator.  I drop the lowest of the six weekly exams and collectively, the five highest exams are worth 40% of your final grade.   Completing these weekly online exams in the spirit they are meant to be taken (no group work, internet searching or text references), should help to prepare you for the final exam.   The questions on the final will be similar in difficulty to questions on the weekly exams.  In addition, at least one quarter of the final exam questions will be revised questions from these weekly exams.  The final exam is worth 35% of your final grade. 

Every week during the session will require a significant online time commitment with a reliable high speed internet connection. Extensions of the homework due dates and exam times will not be given.  The final exam is a traditional, multiple-choice paper and pencil exam taken either here on the MSU campus or off-campus with an appropriate exam proctor. If you require a proctor, it is your responsibility to make arrangements with an appropriate proctor and send me your proposed proctor’s contact information in a timely fashion (more on this later in the message).

The required text book is Knight-Jones-Field: College Physics (A Strategic Approach), Second Edition, Volume 2.  It is sold at the MSU bookstore and at SBS on Grand River. This class will use LON-CAPA. LON-CAPA is a computerized homework and exam management system developed right here at MSU. We will NOT use Angel or Mastering Physics from the textbook.  Since this is an online class, you are not required to purchase an i-clicker.

Please visit www.loncapa.msu.edu and log in using your MSU Net ID and password. Select the "PHY 232C, Summer 2012" class. The first item on the top is the syllabus.  You can also review the syllabus without logging in to Lon-Capa here: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2012summer/phy232c/  Read it carefully. This is the official syllabus of the class.   All times/dates referenced are local times/dates in East Lansing, Michigan.  It is your responsibility to know your local times/dates corresponding to the official East Lansing times/dates.

The next item is a folder containing the lectures for the course.   The “Online Lectures” folder contains the lectures specifically designed for this online course; they are in the form of narrated PowerPoint presentations with example problems.  A high speed internet connection and a computer with the ability to view flash video are required.  All of the online lectures for the course are currently available.

The next folder will contain the homework for the course.  There are homework assignments due twice per week.  They are due at 5:00PM on Tuesdays and 5:00PM on Thursdays.  The only exception is week one where only one homework set is due.  This first set combines the material from the first two online lectures and is due on Friday, July 6th at 5:00PM.
 
You are encouraged to come to the help room (BPS 1248) with your questions.  Our Teaching Assistants are more than happy to answer your questions.  Starting this week, the help room will be open for this course on Mondays and Wednesdays from Noon-3:00PM and 4:00PM-8:00PM; Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00AM-Noon and 1:00PM-5:00PM.

You are also encouraged to use the discussion board inside LON-CAPA. If you don't understand a problem or you need help, just click on the "Post discussion" link and post your question. If you are seeking electronic help on a homework problem, use the post discussion option.  More likely than not, others will have the same question and unlike email, everyone can then benefit from your question and subsequent response(s).  If you know the answer to somebody else's question, just post your answer. Don't forget: The best way to learn is to teach. (Doscendo discimus).

One TA is assigned to provide online help using the course discussion board during the following hours:  Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00PM-7:00PM; Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:00PM-5:00PM.

Working and understanding the homework problems is a very important part of understanding the material.  While, you can likely find a quick, easy formula that will yield the solution to a homework problem, going straight for this type of solution will not help you learn the material.  If you are faced with a similar problem that does not use the same end formula, that quick and easy homework solution would be of little help.  However, if you understand the underlying concepts and the process that went in to finding that end formula, that similar problem should not be difficult to solve.  Rather than using a quick and easy formula that someone else put the work in to finding and posted it on a discussion board, a better course to follow is to try to work the problems yourself after completing the assigned readings and watching the online lectures.  Yes, this is more work, but my belief in the importance of working through the homework yourself to your success in the course is both emphasized and rewarded by its relative weight in calculating your final grade.

The next item is a folder containing the weekly online exams.  Right now, it only contains the cover sheet which you will have access to for all the online weekly exams.  It contains some useful constants and a few equations.  This sheet is for all exams, so you will not need all of the material for all of the exams.  Access to the weekly exams will open up at 6PM every Thursday, except for the first weekly exam which opens at 6PM on Friday, July 6. 

There are a total of six weekly, timed online exams.  Each exam is scheduled to last 40 minutes plus an additional 5 minutes for computer connection/response transmission.  With the exception of weekly exam #1, all other weekly exams must be taken between the hours of 6:00PM on Thursday and 3:00PM on Friday. Access to the exam will shut down promptly at 3:00PM on Friday, so do not wait until after 2:15PM on Friday to start an online exam.  There are no make-ups or extensions to the weekly exams. However, if you miss a weekly exam for any reason you are allowed to drop this exam and the weekly exam portion of your final grade will be based on the other five weekly exams. Only one weekly exam will be dropped – the final exam will NOT be dropped. If you take all six weekly exams, your lowest weekly exam score will be dropped when calculating your final grade. 

Weekly exam #1 must be taken between the hours of 6:00PM on FRIDAY, July 6 and 3:00PM on SATURDAY, July 7.    

To prepare for these weekly exams, you should put together a set of notes on a single 5” by 8” note card.  You should resist the temptation of trying to browse the web, search through lon-capa or search through textbooks for answers while taking these online exams.  First of all, such practices will likely cause you to run out of time on the exam.  Secondly, the questions on the final are similar in difficulty and scope.  Clearly, you will not have these resources available to you when you take the final exam.   A good set of notes from each exam will help you put together a note set for the final exam.   

To help you prepare for the weekly exams, I have placed some exam problems given in previous semesters of this course or the equivalent traditional lecture version of this course in the online lecture folder.  The first item within the practice exam folder is the key to finding which problems go with which weekly exam – you should read this first. There are four “practice exam” pdf files.  The problems on these practice exams follow the same order in which they are covered in the class.  In addition to the practice exam problems, there are detailed solutions to these practice exam problems in the form of narrated PowerPoint presentations.  The solution to the last practice exam is not yet complete, but will be available in a few weeks. 

The final exam must be taken here on the MSU campus on August 14th or off-campus with an appropriate exam proctor.

If you are living or traveling far from the MSU campus at the time of the final exam, beyond a reasonable commuting distance, or if you are traveling with an MSU-sponsored program, you may be able to arrange a proctored off-campus exam. Beyond a reasonable commuting distance is defined as greater than one hour travel time.  Arrangements must be made well in advance of the exam.  You must make arrangements with an appropriate proctor and give me your proctor’s contact information prior to the arrangement deadline.  The arrangement deadline is Tuesday, July 24th at 5:00PM.  If I do not have all of your proctor’s contact information prior to the arrangement deadline, you will have to take the final exam at MSU.  See the link in the final exam section of the syllabus for arrangement details.  

Homework due dates, weekly online exam dates, reading assignments and the location/time of the final exam given on-campus are shown in the calendar section of the syllabus. 

Last of all, I will be out of town until July 9 and will have limited email access until I return.

Richard Hallstein
(BPS 1253, (517) 884-5509, hallstein@pa.msu.edu)

 

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Last updated: March 6, 2012