Feb 4
Dear PHY 232C student,
At the bottom of this message, you will find confirmation of
the status of both your pre-course survey bonus and your
pre-course diagnostic bonus. These bonuses will be added to
your final average.
Your pre-course survey bonus is either +0.5% if you chose to
participate in the survey or 0% if not. Your bonus is shown
below after 'PCSB%added'.
Your pre-course diagnostic bonus to be added to your final
average is either 0.5% if you chose to participate or
0% if not. Your bonus is shown below after 'PCSB%added'.
Even if you chose not to participate in one or either of
these opportunities, you can still participate and receive
the bonus for the post-course versions of each.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 2 10:47AM
Dear PHY 232C student,
The only method I have to communicate to you important events about our class is
via Lon-Capa's mail system. Every message I send to the class will be sent as a
critical message. This means, until you click the 'move to inbox' button at the
bottom of the message, the message will continually pop up while you work on any
Lon-Capa material. I know it can be a bit annoying, but it is necessary so you
do not miss any important announcements. It is easily rectified via the move to
inbox and you will not lose the message by moving it to your inbox.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 2 10:44AM
Dear PHY 232C student,
This is a courtesy reminder that the tuition refund drop deadline is tomorrow,
Friday, Feb 3 at 8PM. If you plan on dropping the course, you should do so
prior to that deadline.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 2 10:42AM
Dear PHY 232C student,
There are(or will be) two sets of practice exams available to you in preparation
for our exams.
Each problem on these old practice exams has a solution available in the form of
an online lecture, whereas the problems themselves are in the form of a static pdf.
The new practice exam problems are comprised of all questions pertaining to the
covered AND given on a midterm exam for this course in the Fall
semester of 2016. However, in the Fall more topics were included on each
midterm, so some of the new practice exam problem sets will not be as long as
our exam. For example, our exam 2 is on magnetism only, whereas the fall
semester included both magnetism and optics; so new practice exam 2 will include
only the magnetism problems and new practice exam 3 will contain only the optics
problems (from the fall). The solutions to these problems will take on one of
three forms:
1. A pdf referencing material already available online in the course (online
lectures, online example problems, old practice exam problems).
2. A pdf referencing material covered in our required text (this material will
be *very* similar to the practice exam problem).
3. A new online lecture for material not very similar to examples already worked
out in the course.
The new practice exam problems are coded in exam mode in Lon-Capa with no due
date set and have zero credit assigned to them.
Even if you are able to work out the practice exam problems successfully (old or
new), it is worthwhile to take a look at the video solutions, as I tend to give
more information there than just the solution to the one question. I'd also
strongly advise trying the practice exam problems armed just with a calculator
and your notes prior to viewing the solutions.
All of the old practice exam problems have been available since the start of the
semester. The new practice exam problems/solutions will become available on the
following dates:
New practice exam 1: available February 6
New practice exam 2: available March 13
New Practice exam 3: available April 3
New practice exam including problems after exam 3: April 26
Note: final is comprehensive,but this last practice exam only covers the
material at the end of the course. All practice exams are applicable to the final.
Lastly, I want to reiterate every problem on all of these practice exams was
given to students on a PHY 232C exam last semester and all problems on the
midterms in the fall semester are included in these four practice exams.
Richard Hallstein
Jan 18
Dear PHY 232C students,
Due to a change in the class schedule for one of our TAs, there has been a
slight change in the help room hours for Wednesdays.
The Wednesday help room hours for 232/232c are now:
11:30AM-1:30PM and 2PM-9PM
Jan 16
Dear PHY 232C student,
My office hours for the semester are Wednesdays 2PM - 3PM and will be held in
the Strosacher Learning Center (1248BPS) or by appointment in my office
(1253BPS).
The 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 7PM, we will have learning assistants assigned specifically to
PHY 232/232C during only certain hours. Beginning tomorrow, Tuesday 1/17 it
will be staffed.
Here are the 232/232C specific hours:
Mondays: 4PM - 6PM
Wednesdays: 11AM - 1PM AND 2PM - 9PM
Thursdays: 12:30PM - 9PM
Richard Hallstein
Jan 14
Dear Students in PHY 232C,
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 is available for you in Lon-Capa to take now through
next Friday, Jan 20 at 11:59PM.
Look for a folder called "Pre-course diagnostic" in LON-CAPA inside the PHY 232C
class and a second folder called "Pre-course Survey".. You can click on eac
folder anytime between now and 1/20.
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 (4/28 through 4/30), 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.
If either of these are not showing up in Lon-Capa, you will need to exit Lon-
Capa and re-login. When changes are made to the course (making material
available, exams scores, etc), a fresh login is required to see them.
Thank you very much for taking the diagnostic and the survey!
Richard Hallstein
Jan 6 and Jan 9
Dear PHY 232C student,
Welcome to the fall semester of PHY 232C – the course is now open and available.
You are receiving this message because you are enrolled in PHY 232C 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 2. 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 232C, Spring 2017 " 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/2017spring/PHY232C/ 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.
The next folder is a folder containing four sets of practice exams with video solutions. These were made a little over five years ago, but are still applicable. About a week before each exam, I will add addditional practice exam problems coded in Lon-Capa (no credit for completing these problems) and video solutions will also be available to these new practice problems. In an effort to give you more practice exam problems/solutions I am keeping the old practice exam problems available to you.
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 has recently released a new version fixing this bug and I am in the process of re-publishing all resources so they function properly on all modern browsers. this will be done at least 2 weeks prior to the due date for the associated homework. Currently, all lectures associated with material through and including set 2 (due Wed., Jan 26 have been updated).
The next folder will contain the homework for the course. There are weekly homework sets that are due on Thursdays at 11:59PM. The first homework set is due Thursday, January 19 at 11:59PM. You should not wait until the last minute to do the assigned homework -- extensions on homework will not be granted.
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, Jan 13 at 12AM until Friday, Jan 20 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.
Our three midterm exams are on Monday late afternoon/ early evenings: Feb 13, Mar 20 and Apr 10 at 5:30PM in 138CEM. An alternate session will be offered for class conflicts only. If you have a class scheduling conflict, you will need to provide docmentation of the conflict (a screenshot of your official class schedule) and I will arrange an alternate time for the exam earlier in the day starting at 6:30AM. If the conflict is work related, you should make arrangements with your employer to get this time off.
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 PHY232/232C will be available. I will send you an email when regular help room hours begin and when we have 232/232C 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 five hundred students in the course and the first semester 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)
Last updated:December 21, 2016