April 4, 2014
You can now view your third midterm exam and your score in Lon-Capa. To see your score, select: "View current problem status and grading information" from the main menu. Next to MIDTERM 3 you will see your total points out of 50.
As stated in the syllabus, you may be able to improve your exam score by completing the correction exam. The correction exam is now available for completion online and it is due on Tuesday, April 8 at 11:59PM.
It is your overall score on both the correction exam and original exam which determines your bonus added to your original score; so complete all problems on the correction exam (not just the ones you answered incorrectly on the exam you took with me or a proctor)!
If a correction exam score is higher than your original score, then 30% of the difference between the correction exam score and your original exam score will be added to your original score as a bonus. For example, if Thursday's score is 40 and the correctionexam score is 50, then 0.3*(50-40)=3 points will be added to Friday's score for an exam total of 43 points. So, 43 points will be used as the midterm exam score for final grade calculation purposes. If the correction exam is equal to or lower than your originalscore, then the original score will be used for final grade calculation.
The correction exam is a different randomization than the original exam. So, just like everyone receives different given values on homework problems, your correction exam and your original exam will differ slightly.
To review your version of the exam in Lon-Capa, click on Course Contents. Then open the folder labeled EXAMS. The midterm is inside a second folder labeled MIDTERM 3. You can view an individual problem on the exam, including your response and the correct responseby clicking on the problem (some problems you can only see your response by clicking on the "Previous Tries" link at the bottom of the problem's page).
You can prepare a printout of your version of the exam using the "prepare a printable document" option. This will show you how many points each problem was worth. On the original exam, you receive credit for every correct response.
If your exam score or the correction exam is not showing up, try exiting Lon-Capa, shutting down all windows of your internet browser and then re-logging into Lon-Capa.
The next (and last) regular homework set is due April 22 at 11:59PM.
Richard Hallstein
March 27, 2014
The third exam will be on Thursday, April 3rd from 6:30PM until 7:30PM in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building (BPS) room 1410.
The exam will be handed out promptly at 6:30PM; students arriving after 8:00PM will not be permitted to enter the room until after the students who arrived promptly have started the exam.
The exam will concentrate on all material covered since the second midterm exam this includes online lectures 8 through 10 (homework sets 7, 8 and 9). It will be based on the readings, the online lectures and the homework. As stated in the syllabus, the exam will also include a modified problem taken from exam 1 and a modified problem taken from exam 2. Some of the problems will be conceptual in nature and some will have numerical answers. There are 50 possible points on the exam.
The exam is closed book, but you may use one 8-1/2 inch x 11 inch or smaller sheet of original hand-written notes and equations. You may use both sides of your note sheet.
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 taking the exam, all baseball caps or brimmed hats must be removed or turned backwards. Furthermore, all caps or hats covering the ears must be removed.
When you enter the room, pick up a bubble sheet 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). Sit in only even numbered seats and fill the right side end of the room first (from a student's perspective). The seat on either side of you should be empty. The seat at the far left end of every row is reserved for left handed writers only.
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.
You will have sixty minutes to complete the exam.
Practice exam problems associated with the material covered on this exam are as follows:
Practice exam#3: Questions 1-9
Practice exam#4: Questions 8, 10-12
We will assign the whole exam again as a homework assignment as a Correction Exam. The Correction Exam is optional. If you don't touch it, you will NOT lose any points from your in-class exam. If your performance is better on the Correction Exam than on the in-class exam, then 30 percent of this positive difference will be added to your in-class exam score. The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to maximize your gain. The Correction Exam will be available Friday, April 4 in the afternoon and will be due on Tuesday, April 8th at 11:59PM. Only students taking the in-class exam or off-campus with an exam proctor will have access to the Correction Exam.
The cover page for the exam will contain the same information as is displayed on the practice exam's cover page. Some useful information is included on the cover page. Note: the exam cover page is for all of the mid-term exams and not all of the useful information listed here is applicable to this exam. There are a total of 13 problems; some of them are multi-part totaling 17 questions on this exam.
The due date for Homework set 10(last set) is Tuesday, April 23rd at 11:59PM.
After the last week of regular class and over the weekend preceding the final exam, a post-course diagnostic will be available in Lon-Capa. The format will be similar to the pre-course diagnostic taken at the start of the semester. Students choosing to participate, will receive a 1% participation bonus added to their final average. This is available to all students whether or not they participated in the pre-course diagnostic. As was the case in the pre-course diagnostic, simple submission patterns (like AAA..., or BBB...) or rapidly clicking on any response throughout the diagnostic will be filtered out from the diagnostic. No participation credit will be given to students not giving the diagnostic an honest attempt.
Richard Hallstein
February 24, 2014
In the exam 2 announcement last week, I reported the exam to concentrate on
material covered in "online lectures 5 through 8 (homework sets 4, 5 and 6)..."
This is incorrect. The correct concentration of coverage is as documented in
the syllabus: online lectures 5 through 7 (homework sets 4, 5 and 6).
Richard Hallstein
February 19, 2014
The second exam will be on Thursday, February 27 from 6:30PM until 7:30PM in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building (BPS) room 1410.
The exam will be handed out promptly at 6:30PM; students arriving after 6:30PM will not be permitted to enter the room until after the students who arrived promptly have started the exam.
The exam will concentrate on all material covered since the first midterm exam – this includes online lectures 5 through 8 (homework sets 4, 5 and 6). It will be based on the readings, the online lectures and the homework. As stated in the syllabus, the exam will also include a modified problem taken from exam 1. Some of the problems will be conceptual in nature and some will have numerical answers. There are 50 possible points on the exam.
The exam is closed book, but you may use one 8-1/2 inch x 11 inch or smaller sheet of original hand-written notes and equations. You may use both sides of your note sheet.
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 taking the exam, all baseball caps or brimmed hats must be removed or turned backwards. Furthermore, all caps or hats covering the ears must be removed.
When you enter the room, pick up a bubble sheet 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 seat at the far left end of every row is reserved for left handed writers only.
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.
You will have sixty minutes to complete the exam.
Practice exam problems associated with the material covered on this exam are as follows:
Practice exam#1: Questions 18&19
Practice exam#2: Questions 1-9 and 13-20
Practice exam#4: Question 1-7 and 9.
In addition to its regular hours, the help room will be open with a TA assigned to this course for evening hours (5PM-9PM) on Wednesday next week.
We will assign the whole exam again as a homework assignment as a Correction Exam. The Correction Exam is optional. If you don't touch it, you will NOT lose any points from your in-class exam. If your performance is better on the Correction Exam than on the in-class exam, then 30 percent of this positive difference will be added to your in-class exam score. The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to maximize your gain. The Correction Exam will be available Friday, February 28 in the afternoon and will be due on Tuesday, March 11th at 11:59PM. Only students taking the in-class exam or off-campus with an exam proctor will have access to the Correction Exam.
The cover page for the exam will contain the same information as is displayed on the practice exam’s cover page. Some useful information is included on the cover page. Note: the exam cover page is for all of the mid-term exams and not all of the useful information listed here is applicable to this exam. There are a total of 17 questions on this exam.
The due date for Homework set 7 is Tuesday, March 18 at 11:59PM.
Richard Hallstein
January 31, 2014 -- 4:48PM
You can now view your midterm exam and your score in Lon-Capa. To see your score, select: "View current problem status and grading information" from the main menu. Next to MIDTERM 1 you will see your total points out of 50.
As stated in the syllabus and in earlier emails, you may be able to improve your exam score by completing the correction exam.
It is your overall score on both the correction exam and original exam which determines your bonus added to your original score; so complete all problems on the correction exam (not just the ones you answered incorrectly on the exam you took with me or a proctor)!
If a correction exam score is higher than your original score, then 30% of the difference between the correction exam score and your original exam score will be added to your original score as a bonus. For example, if Friday's score is 40 and the correction exam score is 50, then 0.3*(50-40)=3 points will be added to Friday's score for an exam total of 43 points. So, 43 points will be used as the midterm exam score for final grade calculation purposes. If the correction exam is equal to or lower than your original score, then the original score will be used for final grade calculation.
The correction exam is a different randomization than the original exam. So, just like everyone receives different given values on homework problems, your correction exam and your original exam will differ slightly.
To review your version of the exam in Lon-Capa, click on Course Contents. Then open the folder labeled EXAMS. The midterm is inside a second folder labeled MIDTERM 1. You can view an individual problem on the exam, including your response and the correct response by clicking on the problem (some problems you can only see your response by clicking on the "Previous Tries" link at the bottom of the problem's page).
You can prepare a printout of your version of the exam using the "prepare a printable document" option. This will show you how many points each problem was worth. On the original exam, you receive credit for every correct response.
If your exam score is not showing up, try exiting Lon-Capa, shutting down all windows of your internet browser and then re-logging into Lon-Capa.
Richard Hallstein
January 31, 2014 -- 4:40PM
The correction exam is now open for you to complete as a homework assignment. The correction exam is in a separate folder labeled correction exam. If the correction exam folder is not showing up in lon-capa, exit lon-capa, close down *all* windows of your web browser and then re-log into Lon-Capa.
Only students taking the original exam either here on the MSU campus or off-campus with a proctor will have access to the correction exam.
As with any of the regular homework assignments, you can post discussion on any of the problems and are encouraged to do so. The correction exam is due on Tuesday, February 4 at 11:59PM. 30% of the *positive* difference between the correction exam score and the original exam score will be added to your original exam score as bonus. The correction exam can only help your score on the exam and under *no* circumstance will your performance on the correction exam lower your exam score. So, it is in your best interest to take this opportunity to add points to your midterm exam score. To get full credit for the correction exam, you must complete all questions -- even those you answered correctly on the original exam. A few of the questions have a reduced number of tries (i.e. the force diagram problem only has four choices and is set to allow you two attempts -- allowing the standard twenty tries would be silly).
Your results for exam 1 are also available and I will send you a separate message shortly.
Homework set 4 is due on Tuesday, February 11 at 11:59PM. While the due date is still a week and a half away, this next regular homework set is very long, so do not put it off until the last minute.
Richard Hallstein
January 18, 2014
Dear PHY 231C students,
If you are living or traveling far from MSU on the date of an exam, you can arrange to take your exam with an appropriate proctor at or near your location. Midterm exam 1 is on Jan. 30, but arrangements to take this exam off-campus must be made in advance.
You must have a travel time of greater than one hour in order to qualify for an off-campus exam. As stated in the syllabus, the deadline for getting me your proctor's information is Jan 21 -- this coming Tuesday for the first midterm exam.
If I do not have your proctor's contact information prior to an exam's proctor arrangement deadline, you will have to take the exam here at MSU at the scheduled time. Proctor arrangement details and arrangement deadlines for all exams are linked in the exam section of the syllabus.
http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2014spring/PHY231C/
Richard Hallstein
January 6, 2014 (8:55AM)
Dear Students in PHY 231C,
We are trying to obtain information on the conceptual preparation of our incoming students for this class. To this end, we have prepared a pre-introductory physics course diagnostic consisting of multiple-choice questions, which do not require any numerical calculations. You will get 1% extra credit counting towards your grade just for participating. To emphasize, this is a participation bonus and is in no way linked to your performance on this diagnostic. Please take up to 50 minutes to answer these 30 conceptual questions, and please, complete the entire test in one sitting without consulting any reference materials.
This diagnostic will be available for you in Lon-Capa to take between 5PM on Friday, January 10 and 11:59PM on Sunday, January 12.
Look for a folder called "Pre-course diagnostic" in LON-CAPA inside the PHY 231C class. You can click on the folder anytime between 01/10, Friday 5PM and 01/12, Sunday 11:09 PM. Before any material appears, you get a message saying that the clock will start, when you click on the start button. The best way to keep time is to set a kitchen timer for 50 minutes and place it next to your keyboard. Please, eliminate all possible distractions, turn off your cell phone and your tv. Once you click on the start button, the clock will start inside LON-CAPA and it cannot be stopped, no matter what you do. When the time is up, the contents of the folder will become hidden for you.
Please take your time and read every question carefully. You are not expected to be able to answer every question on the diagnostic. You submit your responses just like you do on the third homework problem entitled "How to submit answers to bonus" in set one. When you answer a question during the diagnostic, LON-CAPA will not give you an immediate "Correct" or "Incorrect" message. It will just simply say "Answer Submitted...". You will not have access to your score, however next week I will send an email to your Lon-Capa mail confirming your participation credit. You are allowed to go back and change your answer, if you think you picked an incorrect answer. You will have 20 tries on each question. All your submissions will be stored, but only the last submission will be used for each question. If you don't know the answer to a question, then guessing is allowed.
Simple submission patterns (like AAA..., or BBB...) or rapidly clicking on any response throughout the diagnostic will be filtered out from the diagnostic; Lon-Capa permits me to easily verify the time spent on the diagnostic. No participation credit is given to students who do not give the diagnostic a serious attempt.
At the end of the semester, a post course diagnostic will be given for another 1% extra credit. This too, will be a participation bonus and not linked to your performance on the post course diagnostic. Any results produced by this study will not contain your name or any other personal information about you.
If the folder containing the diagnostic is not showing up for you in Lon-Capa, you will need to exit Lon-Capa and re-login. You should close down *all* browser windows prior to relogging in. The Lon-Capa tech support staff strongly advise you exit Lon-Capa every time you finish a session. Leaving your computer logged into to Lon-Capa for an extended period of time can cause errors and an inability for you to submit responses to questions. In addition, any new material added after you login will not be available until you log out and re-login.
Thank you very much for taking the diagnostic!
Richard Hallstein
January 6, 2014 (8:41AM)
Welcome to the Spring semester of PHY 231C.
You are receiving this message because you are enrolled in PHY 231C section 730 or section 731. Please read this message carefully; it contains a significant amount of important information about the course. A copy is posted in the announcement section of the syllabus.
The required text book is Rex & Wolfson: Essential College Physics, Volume 1. It is sold at the MSU bookstore, at SBS on Grand River and at many online retailers. 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 whatsoever in this course. 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 231C, Fall2013" class. The first item on the top is the syllabus. You can also review the syllabus without logging in to Lon-Capa here: www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2014spring/PHY231C/ Read all sections of it carefully. This is the official syllabus of the class.
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 and videos of demonstrations. A high speed internet connection (i.e. not dial-up) and a computer with the ability to view flash video are required. All of the online lectures for the course are currently available. Embedded within the online lectures are bonus homework questions. These questions are optional and can only help your score in the course. Most of these questions, relate at least in part to the assigned reading and/or the online lecture immediately preceding the question. These questions are programmed in exam mode (multiple choice) with correct/incorrect feedback disabled; the correct answer will be available after the due date. The discussion board on these bonus questions is disabled.
The next folder will contain the homework for the course. There are weekly homework sets that are due on Tuesdays at 11:59PM. The first homework set is due Tuesday, January 14 at 11:59PM. All homework sets are currently available, so if you know you have a conflict at some point in the semester, you can work ahead. Additionally, you should not wait until the last minute to do the assigned homework -- extensions on homework will not be granted.
If you are living or traveling far from the MSU campus at the time of an 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. Arrangements must be made well in advance of the exam – requests made after the deadline will not be accommodated and you will have to take the exam at MSU. For arrangement details and arrangement deadlines, see the link in the exam section of the syllabus.
You are encouraged to come to the Strosacker help room with your questions. Our Teaching Assistants will be more than happy to answer your questions. The Strosacker help room is in 1248 BPS and is usually open from 9:00AM to 9:00PM Monday through Friday. You are welcome to go to the help room during any of its open hours, but there will be appointed times when TAs specifically for PHY231/231C will be available. Starting Monday, January 13, the help room will be open. Once I have the exact hours for the help room in general and our TAs specifically, I will post them in the syllabus and notify you by email.
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. Do not use email for help on the homework questions. More likely than not, others will have the same question and unlike email, everyone can then benefit from your question and the 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).
Richard Hallstein
(BPS 1253, (517) 884-5509, hallstein@pa.msu.edu)
Last updated: January 6, 2014