PHYS 101 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Course Description

College Physics:  Mechanics & Heat

Credit: Credit is not given for both PHYS 101 and either PHYS 211 or PHYS 213.

Prerequisite: Trigonometry.

Physics 101 is a non-calculus-based approach to classical mechanics and thermodynamics. Topics covered include:

Course Goals

By the end of this course the student will be able to:

Course Components

All students are required to participate in all course components. 

Credit is granted in each course component. 

All course components are subject to the Academic Integrity Policy.

iClicker

Course participation requires the use of iClicker, an interactive audience response system.

Students need to acquire one at the bookstore (new or used), and bring it to every lecture, including the first lecture.

iClicker Registration

Students' iClickers must be registered at the beginning of every semester.

Learning Strategy

Our learning philosophy is tailored to help students efficiently process problems in physics by providing the necessary experiences.

In introductory physics, the learning philosophy of the Department of Physics can be summarized as follows:

  1. Think About It! (pre-lectures and bridge sets)
  2. Untangle It! (lectures)
  3. Challenge! (homework)
  4. Experience It! (labs)
  5. Close the Loop! (discussion)

This course covers a large amount of new material:

Component Description

Think About It: Pre-lectures and Bridge Sets

Due before each lecture, these web-based assessments are designed to introduce the key ideas/concepts of the lecture. 

Assignments are due as presented in the course schedule.

Pre-lecture

Bridge set

Untangle It:  Lecture

Attendance is required for participation credit.  You must have your functional iClicker at each lecture.

The notes from each lecture will be posted on the course website.

Participation will occur as follows:

Each lecture will focus on a topic of the day as described in the course schedule.  The lecture will be tailored from student responses to the Bridge Set questions.

Lectures are formatted into subunits called interACTive learning segments.  Each ACT includes conceptual questions and numerical problems which students will answer for participation credit.  Students are invited to work in groups,  ask questions of and discuss the problem or question with the lecturer during each ACT problem set.

Challenge: Homework

The web-based homework covering each week's material is due the following week.

Homework is assigned and distributed through flipitPhysics.  The homework is due according to the course schedule.

Homework problems are designed to:

Background for the homework is provided by:

To start work on a homework assignment:

Experience It: Laboratory

Students must be on time for lab. No credit will be granted to students arriving more than 10 minutes late for lab.

The laboratory portion of this course will consist of nine (9) 3-hour laboratories.  Students are expected to:

  1. Arrive on time with the required laboratory manual.
  2. Execute the laboratory exercises by:
    1. setting up simple experiments to investigate topics studied in class
    2. making predictions about the outcome of an experiment
    3. performing measurements of different phenomena studied in lecture
    4. analyzing experimental results
    5. answering questions concerning the results and predictions.
  3. A laboratory write-up which will be completed during the session and turned in at the end of the lab session.

The weekly lab cycle (see course schedule) is designed to provide the opportunity to experience the concepts developed in lecture.

Close the Loop: Discussion

Students must be on time for discussion. Students arriving more than 10 minutes late for discussion will receive a grade of 0% on their quiz.

Each discussion session will consist of the following:

Each student is expected to:

Quizzes will be administered during the discussion section according to the course schedule.

Supplemental

Also there will be open office hours every week to give students one-on-one assistance if they need more help.  Do not be bashful about taking advantage of these!

Academic Integrity

All activities in this course are subject to the Academic Integrity rules as described in Article 1, Part 4, Academic Integrity, of the Student Code.

Infractions include, but are not limited to:

Violations of any of these rules will be prosecuted and reported to the student's home college.

All aspects of the course are covered by these rules, including: