Syllabus PHYSICS 231C
Summer 2016
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Physics 231c is an on-line non-calculus-based general physics class, recommended for a variety of majors, such as those pursuing a premed education. Topics include: Newtonian equations of motion, momentum and energy conservation, rotational motion, gravity, thermodynamics and wave motion.
This is an accelerated course. All material usually covered in a semester will be covered in the first half of the summer. The course starts May 16th and concludes with the final exam on June 29. In general, there will be 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. It is generally accepted that successful students commit at least 2-3 hours of study/homework time per hour of in class time to a course. This is a three hour course which means during a traditional 15 week semester, the total time commitment for successful students should be 15weeks*(3+9)hours per week=180 hours. This amounts to approximately thirty hours per week during this accelerated course. If a student finds a subject particularly challenging, more time may be required. Again, nothing is omitted from this accelerated course and students should expect to spend this amount of time over the six and a half week duration of the course. The midterm and final exams will be traditional paper and pencil exams taken either here on the MSU campus or off-campus with an appropriate exam proctor. |
Instructor
Richard Hallstein, hallstein@pa.msu.edu
#1253 BPS Building, (517) 884-5509
Office Hours: Wednesdays Noon-1:00PM (room 1253BPS)
Help Room Hours (BPS 1248)
Mondays and Wednesdays: 8:00AM-8:00PM
Tuesdays and Thursdays: 8:00AM-5:00PM
The help room and TA support on the discussion board will not be available on Monday, May 30 (Memorial Day National Holiday)
Online Discussion Board will be monitored by a help room teaching assistant diring regular help room hours posted above
One TA in the help room will monitor the discussion board during regular help room hours. While the TA providing online support is in the help room, first priority is given to answering questions online and not to students in the help room. During help room hours, there will always be at least one more TA assigned specifically to assist students in the help room.
Help room hours on Exam days:
Questions about a specific homework problem should be either brought to the helproom or posted using the "Post Discussion" located just below the homework problem. Homework questions will not be answered via email. Although sufficient assistance can be found on some of the less complicated problems using the "Post Discussion" option, better service is available by working with other students and the graduate teaching assistants in the help room.
The closing time for each homework assignment will be the 5:00PM on Tuesday afternoon for the first homework set of each week and 5:00PM Thursday afternoon for the second homework set of each week as shown on the calendar. Late homework will not be accepted:-- the closing time will be strictly enforced. Enter your solutions early to avoid computer/network woes close to the deadline.
There are bonus questions in the online lecture folders. You should be able to answer these after completing the assigned reading from the required text and watching the online lectures. These bonus questions are programmed to look like exam questions, as such, they are all multiple choice. In addition, some of these bonus questions are questions used on previous exams for this course and its traditional equivalent. Lon-Capa's feedback option is disabled, so unlike regular homework problems, Lon-Capa will not tell you if you have the correct answer until after the due date. In addition, the discussion board on these questions has been disabled. These questions are meant for you to work out yourself after having read the assigned reading and watched the online lectures. All points earned here will be added to your total homework points as a homework bonus (so, homework scores over 100% are possible). Hints and/or solutions to the bonus questions will not be provided.
Lon-capa gives equal weight to homework points, bonus question points, exam points and correction exam points. These points are *NOT* equally weighted for grade calculation. See the grading criteria section of this syllabus for details..
The course material, including: homework and recorded online lectures in the form of narrated Powerpoint presentations with example problems are posted on the LON-CAPA website. In addition, there is a required textbook for this course.
A reliable high speed internet connection (i.e. not dial-up) is required; as is a computer with the ability to view flash video. Extensions for homework will not be given for reasons like: "I could not connect to the internet", "I didn't have a reliable internet connection", "I enrolled in the class after the official start of the session" or "the net was down at my parent's place".
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Last updated: May 13, 2016