Physics
101
Course Description - Spring 2011
Introduction
The goal of this course is to
make you
familiar, at the conceptual and basic problem-solving level, with the
physics
of mechanics, heat, and waves.
The basic philosophy of Physics
101 can
be summarized as follows:
1. Read about it (textbook)
2. Untangle it (lectures)
3. Play with it (labs)
4. Challenge yourself (homework)
5. Close the loop (discussion)
The order of
the above
items is very important.
The first exposure you will
have to any
material will be when you, on your own and prior to lecture, read about
it in
the text-book (1).
This first
step is one that all of the following items rest on, and should be
taken very
seriously.
The lecture (2)
will not simply regurgitate what you have read, rather it will take the
concepts you are having difficulty understanding and will
expand/explain them,
usually with the aid of demonstrations.
This
is not a traditional
approach. Your participation is required both
prior to and during each
lecture! Before every
lecture
you will be required to work through a brief "Pre-Flight" on the
Web. Each Pre-Flight will probe your understanding of the reading
material assigned for that lecture, and must be completed by 6am on the
day of
the lecture to receive credit. Your
answers to these questions will be used by the lecturer in preparation
of the
material for that afternoons lecture. There are no "bad"
Pre-Flight answers as long as you give it your best shot: You will
receive full
credit simply for providing us with feedback.
The lectures themselves will be
very
interactive, and your participation is strongly recommended.
Based on
Pre-Flight responses, a selection of concepts will be explained and
discussed. Student questions and comments in class are highly
encouraged.
The weekly lab cycle (3) starts on Wednesday, and is
designed to give
you the opportunity to explore the concepts you have read about in the
textbook
and discussed in lecture on Monday and Wednesday afternoon.
The Web-based homework (4) covering each weeks
material is due at 6am on
the Tuesday of the following
week. This means you will have the background of reading the text
and the
experience of two lectures and a hands-on lab to guide you in finishing
each weekly
homework assignment. Homework problems are designed to test your
understanding of the concepts as well as simple problem-solving skills.
To cap things off, a 2-hour
weekly
Discussion section (5)
will go over the
concepts you have learned about in the previous weeks text reading,
lectures,
lab and homework. The
discussion cycle starts
on Tuesdays.
To help you keep track of "what
is
due when" we have put together a handy Web based daily planner.
You
can link to it here, or from the main
Physics 101 homepage.
Plea for
Participation
It should be clear to you that
the
Physics 101 relies very heavily on student interaction and feedback;
the
Pre-Flights before every lecture are clear examples of this. Even
though
these Pre-Flights are graded on participation only, they are perhaps
the most
crucial element of the course since they tell us what you do and don't
understand; please take them seriously. In the same spirit, the
lectures will
be extremely interactive, guided both by Pre-Flight information and by
student
questions. Please participate!
Required
Background
The only "official"
pre-requisite for this class is trigonometry. We will assume you are
sufficiently adept with math to solve simple simultaneous equations and
manipulate vectors. Although not required, most people enrolled
in
Physics 101 have taken a high school physics class and many have had a
semester
of calculus.
Note for
Pre-Med's
For many of you Physics 101 and
102 will
be an important part of your preparation for the MCAT exam. Rest
assured
that this has been one of the brightest beacons guiding the re-design
of these
classes.
Course
Component Details
Textbook:
The required text for this class is College
Physics, Vol. 1, third edition, by
Giambattista, Richardson, Richardson. If you are taking
Physics
102 next semester, you will use Vol 2 of the same book. Optional study
guides
and solution manuals for this text will be available at the book store,
but are
not required. The textbook publisher has also made available a
very nice
Web site containing additional questions, solutions, animations
etc. You
can find this at: http://www.mhhe.com/grr/
Lectures:
Lectures are held in 151 Loomis
on
Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and you are strongly encouraged to
attend and
participate. Lectures are given at both 1 pm and 2 pm. Although
you are
officially scheduled to attend only one of these, you are welcome to go
to
either or both. You are required to complete a Web-based lecture
"Pre-Flight" before 6am on the day of each lecture (you are
encouraged to read the textbook and do the Pre-Flights the day before
the
lecture, not to leave them to the last moment). Lecture handouts
may be downloaded
from the web to help guide you in taking notes during each lecture.
Lab
Session:
Lab sessions are held in 64 Loomis. The laboratory portion
of Physics 101 will consist of nine 3-hour laboratories, each involving
a
series of activities, including (i) setting up simple experiments to
investigate topics you've studied in class, (ii) making predictions
about the
outcome of your experiments, (iii) performing measurements of different
phenomena you've studied in lecture, (iv) analyzing your experimental
results,
and (v) answering questions concerning your results and
predictions.
Computer
Homework:
Each week you will be responsible for completing computer-based homework assignments.
These
assignments are graded and are an integral part of the course.
Each homework set must be
completed by
the time indicated. For each homework, there are two due dates to keep
in mind.
To receive full credit, the homework must be completed by the assigned
due
date. Homework completed after the assigned due date but prior to one
week
following the assigned due date can receive at most 90%.
No credit is given for homework completed
after the second due date.
You may work a problem as many
times as
you like and only the highest grade is recorded in the gradebook. You
can never
lower your score by reworking a problem.
Discussion
Sessions:
Discussion sections are held in 32 Loomis. These
sessions will
emphasize collaborative learning of topics which have already been
covered in
lecture and homework. Students will work in teams of four on advanced
physics
problems to help them master the concepts and problem solving
techniques
required for the exams. The final 20 minutes of each period will be
devoted to
an individual quiz on the material from section. The quizzes will be
graded for
credit, and provide both the student and the instructors with feedback
regarding each individuals mastery of the weeks topics.
Exams:
Three 90-minute multiple-choice "hour" exams will be given (See the
Course Schedule). You will be assigned a room for each exam based on
your
discussion section, and attendance will be taken by your discussion TA.
Bring a
calculator and writing utensils to all exams. In addition, bring your
official
university identification card to show upon request.
The final exam will be three
hours in
length and will cover material from the whole semester. You will be
told when
and where to take your final exam as soon as that information becomes
available
to the Physics 101 staff.
Grading:
Your final grade for Physics
101 will be
based upon your total score on all the components of the course. The
total
possible score is 1000 points, broken down as follows:
|
Final Exam |
300 |
|
Hour exams (100 each) |
300 |
|
Labs |
150 |
|
Discussion Quizzes (Drop Lowest) |
100 |
|
Web-based Homework |
100 |
|
Lecture
Participation (clickers) |
25 |
|
Lecture Pre-Flights |
25 |
The breakdown of total points
versus
course letter grade will be approximately:
A+(950), A(920), A-(900), B+(880), B(860),
B-(835),
C+(810), C(780), C-(750), D+(720), D(690), D-(610), andF(<610).
For some parts of the course
the average
score is typically very high. For
example, there
is no reason you should not be able to score 100% on your web based
homework
and Pre-Flight assignments. You should
also be able to do very well on Labs and Quizzes. This
means that
you cannot compensate for low examination grades by getting high
homework/pre-flight/lab/quiz grades. On the other hand, you can seriously lower your grade by
doing poorly on
these. The real payoff for doing well on the homework,
pre-flights, quizzes and labs is a better understanding of the physics
and
consequently higher examination scores.
Since
the grade
"cutoffs" are tentatively set at the beginning of the semester, you
are not competing with your fellow students for a high position on a
"final curve". It is in principle possible for everyone to get
an "A" grade in this class.
Gradebook:
The web-based gradebook will show, for all aspects of the class,
exactly how
you are progressing. At the end of the course, quiz, homework and lab
components will be put together to obtain the final grade. During the term, you should regularly
check that the
exam, homework, lab, and quiz grades are correctly entered in the
gradebook. It is
your responsibility
to bring any problems with your assigned grades to the attention of
your section
instructor immediately.
Absences
and
Excused Grades:
There is no way to make up missed hour exams, quizzes or labs.
Unexcused
absences from any hour exam, quiz or lab will be assigned a zero grade;
excused
absences will receive an EX grade. At the end of the semester, EX
grades on
hour exams will be replaced by the average of your grades on the exams
that you
did take. A similar procedure will be applied to excused labs and
quizzes.
If you miss a discussion quiz
(lab) for a
valid reason, take your excuse to 231/233 Loomis. The secretary will
make
copies of it to distribute to the course personnel. If
appropriate,
you will receive an EX grade.
Excused grades for lab reports,
quizzes
and hour exams will be given only in one of the following
circumstances: (a)
illness; (b) personal crisis (e.g. automobile accident, required court
appearance, death of a close relative, weather conditions which make it
impossible to get to the university); and (c) required attendance at an
official UIUC activity (e.g. varsity athletics, band concert).
In case of (a), go to the
McKinley Health
Center. If upon examination the staff decides you are sick, you will
receive a
slip from the Center with a telephone number that you should provide to
231/233
Loomis. The course secretary may call the Center to verify that you
were seen
there (the Center does not provide written excuses per se), OR go to your private physician and obtain a
written
excuse. The excuse should contain your doctor's name and telephone
number so
that the secretary can call to verify the information.
In case (b) contact the Dean of
Students'
Office 333-0050. (At night this number is known as the Emergency Dean).
Inform
your lab or quiz TA. that you have done so. The Dean of Students'
Office will
send a letter to 233 Loomis. This letter will be distributed to your
instructors.
In case (c) inform the course
secretary
(231/233 Loomis) in addition to any
relevant
TA in advance about any hour exams, quiz or lab that you will
miss.
*If a student does not complete enough graded course components to earn course credit, we will assign a grade of F. Only a dean of in your college can authorize an extension of time for course completion (i.e., change the F to an INC). See Article 3, part 1 of the Student Code.
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