Announcements

We are trying to obtain information on the conceptual understanding of physics
of students at the completion this class. To this end, we have prepared a
post-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 (only serious attempts
will get the bonus -- covered shortly). 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 conceptual questions, and please, complete
the entire test in one sitting without consulting any reference materials.

We value your input and want only serious attempts at completing the diagnostic.
If you don't know the answer to a question, then guessing is allowed. However,
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 allows me to easily check the time spent on each problem in the
diagnostic. Any students having their submissions filtered out for the reasons
described above will also forfeit the participation bonus.

This diagnostic will be available for you in Lon-Capa to take between 5PM on
Friday, June 20 and 11:09PM on Sunday, June 22.

Look for a folder called "Post-course diagnostic" in LON-CAPA inside the PHY
231C class. You can click on the folder anytime between 6/20, Friday 5 PM and
4/27, 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, after the final exam I will send an email to your
Lon-Capa with a score recap for the course -- one of the categories will be this
post-course diagnostic. 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 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.
Thank you very much for taking the diagnostic!

If your last name is alphabetically between AAA and PAR, your exam is in
Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building (BPS) room 1410.

If your last name is alphabetically between PAT and ZZZ, your exam is in
Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building (BPS) room 1415.

Some streets in and around the campus are closed for construction, so you should
allow extra time to get to the exam location.

The exam will be handed out promptly at 4:00PM; students arriving after 4:00PM
will not be permitted to enter the room until after the students who arrived
promptly have started the exam.

The exam is cumulative and will cover everything in the course. It will be based
on the readings, the online lectures 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. Roughly one-third of the points on the exam will
come from the material covered prior to the midterm exam. The other two-thirds
will come from the material we covered after the midterm exam.

The exam is closed book, but you may use TWO 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 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 or computers for any reason is NOT permitted. Pencils and
calculators will NOT be provided. 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, find your row from the seating assignments displayed on
the screen at the front of the room. Sit in only odd-numbered empty seats,
filling seats from the side of the room opposite the building’s atrium first.
The only exception to sitting in odd-numbered seats is left handed writers may
sit in seat number 22 on a first come-first serve basis, but you must sit in
your designated row.

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
or TA. 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 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 was displayed
on the cover page for the midterm exam. There are a total of 25 problems; some
of them are multi-part totaling 30 questions on this exam.

Here are some study suggestions: review the readings, online lectures and the
homework problems; make a good sheet of notes for the exam; modify your note
sheet you used on the midterm exam as needed to cover the material from the
first part of the course; use your note sheets to solve the practice exam
problems before looking at the solution videos; even if you correctly solved the
practice exam problems, watch the practice exam solution videos; and modify your
note sheets as need.

There are four sets of practice exam problems available to you in Lon-Capa in
the Practice exams folder.

You should now be able to view your results from both the
midterm exam and the correction exam in Lon-Capa.

At the end of this message I am including: your Midterm
pre-correction correction score (in percent); your midterm
correction exam score (in percent); your midterm score
adjusted to include the correction exam (in percent); your
homework average through set 5 including the bonus questions
in percent; your projected final exam score in percent (as a
best-guess, this is your PRE-correction midterm score in
percent); your projected final average in percent; your
pre-course diagnostic bonus and the corresponding projected
final grade based on the criteria outlined in the syllabus.

These projections assume ALL future homework (both regular
and bonus) and your final exam score will be accurately
represented by the work you have done thus far. Clearly, if
any future work in any of these categories changes, your
actual scores/grades in some or all of these projected
categories will change as well.

Thus far, we have had 114 regular homework questions and 24
bonus questions. So, there were a maximum of 138 homework
points you could have earned through set 5. However, your
percent score is based on 114 points as stipulated in the
syllabus. Anyone with more than 114 homework points earned
has a homework percent greater than 100%!

Here is the key to interpret my abbreviations below:
HW%: Homework percent
MT%: Percent score on the Midterm exam
CE%: Percent score on the correction exam
CMT%: Percent score on the midterm adjusted for correction
(this is what is used for grade calculation)
PFE%: PROJECTED final exam score in percent
PCD: Post course diagnostic percent bonus(either 0 or 1)
PFA%: PROJECTED final course average in percent
PFG: PROJECTED final grade

As an *example* of how your projections were calculated,
here is a calculated projection based on the current class
averages in each category (this calculation is based on the
class average, not your personal projection -- the bottom of
the email sent to your Lon-Capa account for your personal
projection):

The class average on the homework through set 5 is 106% The
class average on the midterm, pre-correction is 58% The
average on the correction exam is 97%. The corrected
midterm average is 69% and the average diagnostic bonus is
0.59%.

Using these averages, we can project a final average and
grade in the course. In this projection and in your
personalized projection at the end of this message, we'll
make a these assumptions:
1. Assume homework and bonus point performance for the
remainder of the course remains as it has been thus far.
2. Assume the average final exam percent score is the same
as the average PRE-correction midterm percent score.
Again, if the actual performance differs from these
assumptions, the actual scores will change too.

Homework is weighted at 30%, the midterm at 30% and final
exam 40%. So, this average set of scores yields:

Using the grading criteria in the syllabus, we see this
projected final average for this hypothetical average
student is 76.1% and the corresponds to a projected final
grade of 3.0. Again, the above are all CLASS AVERAGES --
your personalized scores are at the bottom of this message.

This email is to officially inform you of the pre-course
diagnostic participation credit. At the bottom of this
message you will see a record of your credit: PCD 1 means
you participated in the diagnostic and will have 1% added to
your final average in the class. PCD 0 means you did not
participate and will not receive this bonus.

You can participate in a post-course diagnostic at the end
of the course and earn a 1% bonus for participating. Even
those who did not participate in the pre-course diagnostic
are eligible to earn this 1% post course credit by
participating in this latter diagnostic.

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 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 Friday's exam which
determines your bonus added to Friday's score; so complete all problems on the
correction exam (not just the ones you answered incorrectly last week)!

If a correction exam score is higher than Friday's score, then 30% of the
difference between the correction exam score and Friday's exam score will be
added to Friday's 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 was
equal to or lower than Friday's score, then Friday's score will be used for
final grade calculation.

The correction exam is a different randomization than Friday's exam. So, just
like everyone receives different given values on homework problems, your
correction exam and Friday's 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. You can view an individual problem on the exam, including your response
and the correct response by clicking on the problem.

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 Friday's 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.

The correction exam is now available for you to complete in Lon-Capa.
Attempting the correction exam problems can only help your exam score and will
not under any circumstances cause last Friday's score to decrease. 30% of the
positive difference between your score on last Friday's exam and your score on
the correction exam will be added to last Friday's score as a bonus. If you
choose not to attempt the correction exam or if your score on the correction
exam is lower, then last Friday's score will remain unchanged. Here is an example:

Suppose a student had a score of 30/50 on last Friday's exam and correctly
answers all question on the correction exam (50/50), then the score used for
grade calculation would be:

30+0.30*(50-30)=35 out of 50. This is 72% compared with an uncorrected score of
60% -- a sizable bump.

Note: it is the total points on the correction that matter, not just those
associated with questions you answered incorrectly last week. So, complete the
entire correction assignment.

The correction works just like a homework assignment. So the discussion board
is available for you to use and assist your fellow students.

I should have your exam score to you in Lon-Capa this evening and will send a
message to your MSU email account when it is available.

May 23

The midterm exam will be on Friday, May 30th at 4:00PM.

If your last name is alphabetically between AAA and PAR, your exam is in Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building (BPS) room 1410.

If your last name is alphabetically between PAT and ZZZ, your exam is in Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building (BPS) room 1415.

Some streets in and around the campus are closed for construction, so you should allow extra time to get to the exam location.

The exam will be handed out promptly at 4:00PM; students arriving after 4:00PM will not be permitted to enter the room until after the students who arrived promptly have started the exam.

The exam will cover everything through and including online lecture 6 (homework set 5). It will be based on the assigned readings, the online lectures and the homework. 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. If you show up to the exam with a set of notes that are not original and handwritten, you will have to take the exam without notes.

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, tablets 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 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, 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 odd-numbered empty seats filling seats from the side of the room opposite the building’s atrium first. The only exception to sitting in odd-numbered seats is that left handed writers may sit in seat number 22 on a first come-first serve basis, but you must sit in your designated row.

The exam and scantron sheets 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 eighty minutes to complete the exam.

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 or off-campus proctored exam score. If your performance is better on the Correction Exam than on the in-class exam or proctored exam, then 30 percent of this positive difference will be added to your original exam score. The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to maximize your gain. The Correction Exam will be available Monday, June 2nd at 10AM EDT and will be due on Tuesday, June 3rd at 5:00PM EDT. 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 contains information for all exams and not all of the useful information listed here is applicable to this exam. There are a total of 15 problems; some of them are multi-part totaling 21 questions on this exam.

Here are some study suggestions: review the readings, online lectures and the homework problems; make a good sheet of notes for the exam; use your note sheet to solve the practice exam problems for this exam before looking at the solution videos; even if you correctly solved the practice exam problems, watch the practice exam solution videos; and modify your note sheet as need.

There are practice exam problems available in a folder labeled Practice Exams. Of these exams, the first two have problems relevant to the midterm exam. The first set labeled Practice Exam 1 is comprised entirely of problems given on exams in previous versions of this course or its traditional equivalent. Only the first seven (7) questions in the second set, labeled Practice Exam 2 are from material you are responsible for on the midterm exam (these are the momentum and collision problems).

If the practice exams are not showing up, you need to log out of Lon-Capa and re-login. I highly suggest log out each time you end a session, otherwise you may miss material added to the course.

The due date for Homework set 6 is Thursday, June 5th at 5:00PM EDT.

Richard Hallstein

May 15, 2:30PM

PHY 231C: reminder: off-campus proctored midterm exam ARRANGEMENT deadline is 5/22/2014

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.
The midterm exam is on May 30 and the final exam is on June 25.

You must have a travel time of greater than one hour in order to qualify for an
off-campus exam. However, students enrolled in regular classes here at MSU (i.e.
PHY 251) are not eligible for off-campus exams. Students close enough to attend
classes here are close enough to take their exams here.

The deadline for getting me your proctor's information is May 22 at 5PM one week
from today for the midterm exam. The deadline for getting me your proctor's
contact information for the final exam is June 5 at 5PM. 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 the deadline are linked in the exam section of the syllabus.

http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2014summer/PHY231C

Richard Hallstein

May 15, 1:15PM

PHY 231C Pre-Course diagnostic with 1% particiaption bonus available 5PM on5/16 until 5/18

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 5:00PM on
Friday, May 16 and 5:00PM on Sunday, May 18 at 11:59PM.

Look for a folder called "Pre-course diagnostic" in LON-CAPA inside the PHY 231C
class. You can click on the folder anytime between 5/16, Friday 5PM and 05/18,
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.

We value your input and want only serious attempts at completing the diagnostic.
If you don't know the answer to a question, then guessing is allowed. However,
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 allows me to easily check the time spent on each problem in the
diagnostic. Any students having there submissions filtered out for the reasons
described above will also forfeit the participation bonus.

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

May 8 and again on May 12:

This message will be re-sent on Monday, May 12th. This is the official start of the summer session.

You are receiving this message because you are enrolled in PHY 231C section 730 or section 731.

I realize this message is long, but you should read it carefully and in detail as it is part of the syllabus It is copied in the announcement section of the syllabus for your reference.

We will cover all material usually covered in a fifteen week course in a little over six weeks. This course runs only in the first summer session starting on May 12 and finishing with the final exam on June 25. In general, there are two homework sets due each week. 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 will not be given.

There are two exams. The midterm exam and final exam are traditional, multiple-choice paper and pencil exam taken either here on the MSU campus or off-campus with an appropriate exam proctor. On the Monday following the midterm exam, a correction exam will open up in homework mode. The correction exam is completed online just like all of the regular homework assignments. This correction assignment allows you to do the same exam again with a different randomization for your assigned values. 30% of the positive difference between your correction exam score and your original exam score is added to your original score as a bonus. The correction exam can only help you – do nothing and your original score stays as-is.

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. Your travel time must be greater than one hour to qualify for a proctored exam. If you are taking a regular class which meets here on the MSU campus (i.e. PHY251), you are considered to live close enough to take your exams here and are not eligible for off-campus exams. If you require a proctor, it is your responsibility to find an appropriate proctor in your area. Arrangements for a proctored exam must be made well in advance of the exam, as such requests made after the deadline will not be accommodated and you will have to take the exam at MSU on its scheduled date. You can find arrangement details and deadlines by clicking on the link in the exam section of the syllabus.

The required text book is Rex & Wolfson: Essential College Physics, Volume 1.
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, D2L or the Mastering Physics add-on to the textbook in this course. Since this is an online class, you are not required to purchase an i-clicker.

Whenever you finish using Lon-CAPA you should *ALWAYS* log out. Staying logged in for an extended period of time will prevent you from seeing any new material added to the course i.e. correction exam, exam results, practice exam problems (i.e. correction exam, exam results, practice exam problems, etc). In addition, leaving Lon-Capa idle for a long time can cause access errors (i.e. getting a message when trying to answer a problem stating the system is not available). No extensions will be given for such preventable errors.

Please visit www.loncapa.msu.edu and log in using your MSU Net ID and password. Select the "PHY 231C, Summer 2014" 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/2014summer/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 some lecture 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 and so. In addition, hints and/or solutions to these bonus questions will not be provided.

The next folder will contain the homework for the course. There are homework sets that are due, in general every Tuesday at 5PM and Thursday at 5PM. The first homework set is due FRIDAY, May 16th at 5PM. 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.

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 May 12, the help room will be open for this course on Mondays and Wednesdays from Noon-9:00PM; Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00AM-5:00PM. During these help room hours, there will always be two TAs in the help room. One is assigned specifically to provide online help using the course discussion board While this TA will be in the help room, the online support TA’s first priority is to give online assistance. Only after all online questions are answered is this TA permitted to assist students in the help room.

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 a question, just post your answer. Don't forget: The best way to learn is to teach. (Doscendo discimus).

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 into finding, a better course to follow is attempting to work the problems yourself after completing the assigned readings and watching the online lectures. Only after an honest attempt at the problems should you seek further assistance. 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.

Physics 231C Announcements

May 23

May 15, 2:30PM

May 15, 1:15PM

May 8 and again on May 12: