Announcements

Dear PHY 231C students,

In addition to the practice exam problems outlined in last week's exam notice,
questions 10-12 from practice exam 2 are also applicable to this exam.
Further, I gave some guidance/hints on coverage from a couple of chapters. I
meant exactly what I included in that message. Specifically, the exam coverage
from chapter 6 on linear momentum will only have questions pertaining to
conservation laws, perfectly inelastic collisions and elastic collisions;
chapter 10 on solids and fluids will only include questions pertaining to the
fluids part.

Richard Hallstein

Dear PHY 231C students,

The second exam will be on Thursday, November 3 from 8:00PM until 9:00PM in the
Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building(BPS) room 1410. The exam will be
handed out promptly at 8PM; students arriving after 8PM will not be permitted to
enter the room until after the students who arrived promptly have started the exam.

The exam will concentrate on everything from our first midterm through next
week's homework. Specifically, online lecture 6 (homework set 5) through and
including online lecture 10 (homework set 7). 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. As stated in the syllabus, one
revised question from exam 1 will be on this exam. There are a total of 18
separate responses on the exam. There are 50 possible points on the exam.

Here is the breakdown, by topic for points on this exam, along with a couple
of hints:
Momentum (conservation laws, perfectly inelastic collisions and elastic
collisions): 8 points
Oscillations: 8 points
Rotation: 10 points
Gravitation: 10 points
Solids and Fluids (Fluids part *only* on the exam): 10 points
Revised question from exam 1: 4 points

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.

Your note sheet will be checked at least once during the exam. Any notes other
than described in the syllabus and restated here will be considered a violation
of the university's policy on academic integrity. As such, a non-droppable
penalty grade of zero for the exam will be given and an official report of
academic dishonesty will be filed with the university.

The problems on the exam will follow, roughly the order they were covered in the
class -- this should help you in organizing your note sheet. The exception will
be the revised question from exam 1, this will be the final question on the exam.

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, 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).
DO NOT open the exam until you are told to do so by an instructor. However, once
the answer sheets are handed out 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 one hour to complete the exam.

The whole exam will be assigned again in the same form 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 as a bonus.
The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to maximize your
gain. The Correction Exam will be available in the afternoon on Friday, November
4 and will be due the next day, Tuesday, November 8 at 11:59PM.

Some useful information is included on the cover page -- I have added some
additional information on this cover page and will post it in our exam folder by
the end of today.

The practice exams pertaining to this exam (and all exams) are in the practice
exam folder in Lon-Capa. You should try doing these practice problems with a
draft of your not sheet, prior to viewing the video solutions. Even if you have
successfully solved a problem, you should still view the solution.

Here are the questions applicable to this exam:
Practice #2: Questions 1-7 & 14-20
Practice #3 Questions 1-6
Practice #4: Questions 1-9

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. I have added some
additional information on this cover.

The due date for Homework set 8 is Tuesday, November 15 at 11:59PM; this set is
long, so you'll want to get an early start on it.

Richard Hallstein

Dear PHY 231C students,

The first exam will be on Thursday, October 6 from 8:00PM until 9:00PM in the
Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building(BPS) room 1410. The exam will be
handed out promptly at 8PM; students arriving after 8PM 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 5
(homework set 4). 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 a total of 18 separate responses on the exam.
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.

Your note sheet will be checked at least once during the exam. Any notes other
than described in the syllabus and restated here will be considered a violation
of the university's policy on academic integrity. As such, a non-droppable
penalty grade of zero for the exam will be given and an official report of
academic dishonesty will be filed with the university.

The problems on the exam will follow, roughly the order they were covered in the
class -- this should help you in organizing 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, 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).
DO NOT open the exam until you are told to do so by an instructor. However, once
the answer sheets are handed out 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 one hour to complete the exam.

The whole exam will be assigned again in the same form 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 as a bonus.
The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to maximize your
gain. The Correction Exam will be available in the afternoon on Friday, October
7 and will be due the next day, Tuesday, October 11 at 11:59PM.

Some useful information is included on the cover page. The cover page for the
exam will contain the same information as is displayed on the practice exam's
cover page. The practice exam is in the subfolder in the online lecture folder
in Lon-Capa. You should try doing these practice problems with a draft of your
not sheet, prior to viewing the video solutions. Even if you have successfully
solved a problem, you should still view the solution.

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.

The due date for Homework set 5 is Tuesday, October 18 at 11:59PM; this set is
long, so you'll want to get an early start on it.
Richard Hallstein

Dear PHY 231C student,
Our first exam is still a couple of weeks away, however I have received a few requests about studying for the course in general and specifically for exams. With this in mind, I have added an additional section in the syllabus with some study suggestions. You can review it here:

Dear PHY 231C student,

My office hours for the course will change to 5:00PM-6:00PM on Tuesdays in the
helproom (BPS 1248).

For this week only, I will keep my original hours today 10AM-11AM in BPS 1253
and my new hours 5PM-6PM on Tuesday. Starting next week, my hours will be
5PM-6PM in 1248BPS (or by appointment).

Richard Hallstein

Dear PHY 231C student,

The help room/Strosacher Learning center(aka the help room) is located in room
1248BPS.

While the general physics help room hours are Monday through Thursday 9AM-9PM
and Friday 9AM to 6PM, we will have learning assistants assigned specifically to
PHY 231/231C during only certain hours. Beginning Friday, 9/9 it will be staffed.

Here are the 232/232C specific hours:

Mondays: 9AM - noon AND 1PM - 9PM (closed on Labor Day holiday)

Tuesdays: 9AM - 9PM

Fridays: 9AM - noon AND 2PM - 4PM

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 timed
pre-introductory physics course diagnostic consisting of multiple-choice
questions, which do not require any numerical calculations. In addition, we'd
like to you to participate in a survey meant to gauge students' attitudes about
physics. This second survey is untimed and there are no right/wrong responses.
You will get 0.5% extra credit counting towards your grade just for
participating for in each of these optional diagnostics/surveys (if yo do both
it is +1%). To emphasize, this is a participation bonus and is in no way linked
to your performance on the diagnostic. Please take up to 50 minutes to answer
these 30 conceptual questions this timed diagnostic, and please, complete the
entire test in one sitting without consulting any reference materials.

The survey includes a permission form in which you can either consent we use
your responses or decline it. In either case, you can take the survey and
receive the participation bonus.

This diagnostic and survey will be available for you in Lon-Capa to take between
today,Friday Sep 2 and a week from today, Friday, Sep 9 at 11:59PM.

Look for a folder called "Pre-course diagnostic" in LON-CAPA inside the PHY 231C
class and a second folder called "Pre-course Survey".. You can click on eac
folder anytime between now and 9/9.

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 or
the survey. 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 (12/9 through 12/11), a post course diagnostic and a
post course survey will be given for another 0.5% participation extra credit for
each of them. 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.

Thank you very much for taking the diagnostic and the survey!
Richard Hallstein

Dear PHY 231C Fall 2016 student,
Welcome to the fall semester of PHY 231C – the course is now open and available.

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 d2L 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, Fall 2016" 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/2016fall/PHY231C/ Read *all* sections of it carefully. This is the official syllabus of the class and contains information like important dates (exams & homework), bonus point opportunities, homework information, exam information, grading, etc.

The next item is a folder containing the online lectures for the course. All of the online lectures and the associated homework sets are available in Lon-Capa at the start of the semester. 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 demonstrations. Embedded within the online lecture folders 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. No hints or solutions will be provided for these extra credit bonus problems. There are a few extended response type bonus homework questions; these bonus questions come with a participation bonus for any serious attempt.

A reliable high speed internet connection is required, as is a computer with the ability to view flash video. The computer will need a current, supported operating system and a browser running HTML5 to use all the options available in the online lectures. There is an inconvenient bug you would only encounter if you happen to have a Windows computer with (1) a touch screen AND (2) a physical keyboard and/or mouse (including a track pad); in this case the video controls will not function properly in Chrome or Firefox (they’ll play, but rewind and other go to controls will not work), so you would need to use Internet Explorer where all controls function properly. Tech Smith's Camtasia software is used to make these videos. Tech Smith is aware of this bug and they hope to have it patched in the future.

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, September 13 at 11:59PM. You should not wait until the last minute to do the assigned homework -- extensions on homework will not be granted.

The next folder contains four sets of practice exams with video solutions. The last two folders are a timed pre-course diagnostic and an untimed pre-course survey. Both will be available to complete this weekend and both come with a 0.5% participation bonus. Both of these will be available from Friday, Sep 2 at 12AM until Friday, Sep 9 at 11:59PM. Absolutely no extensions will be given.

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 posted in the syllabus 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 assist you in finding your way to the answers to our homework questions. However, they are instructed not to simply solve these problems for you. The Strosacker help room is in 1248 BPS and is usually open from 9:00AM to 9:00PM Monday through Thursday and 9:00AM-6:00PM on Fridays. You are welcome to go to the help room during any of its open hours, but there will be designated times when TAs specifically assigned to PHY231/231C will be available. I will send you an email when regular help room hours begin and when we have 231/231C specific hours set.

You are 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. Try to be specific in your request – statements like “help” or “I don’t understand” do not give us any idea about what is giving you difficulty. Do not use email for help on the homework questions. With two hundred students in the course, it is simply impossible to answer all potential homework questions individually. Further, 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 a fellow student’s question, just post your answer. Last of all, please refrain from simply posting a formula without any context or discussion. Most often, the person posting the formula understands where it came from and would be able to find a similar relationship when it is encountered on say, an exam. Whereas, those using such a formula without understanding where it came from are quite often lost when encountering the similar situation on an exam.

Hope you have a great semester both here and in your other courses,
Richard Hallstein
(BPS 1253, (517) 884-5509, hallstein@pa.msu.edu)

Physics 231C Announcements