Physics
211 Course
Description
Introduction
Welcome to
Physics 211, Introduction to Classical Mechanics! In this course we will
discuss the basic laws describing forces and motion and we will develop the
mathematical framework needed to understand these in some detail. These topics are important, not only because they are
extremely interesting in their own right, but also because they form the
foundation upon which most physics and engineering is built. It is our goal that at the end of this course
you will understand the main concepts of mechanics, be able
to apply them quantitatively for solving relevant problems, and appreciate qualitatively
how they play a role in many aspects of our lives. The road to understanding
is not a particularly easy one, but the journey is well worth the effort. In
order to help you, we have devised a multifaceted approach intended to maximize
your conceptual understanding and ability to solve practical problems.
Note: This course description was written for a fall or spring semester. In a summer 8-week session, each week corresponds roughly to 2 weeks in a normal semester.
Overview
The basic
teaching philosophy of Physics 211 can be summarized as follows:
1. Introduction and first chance to think about it (prelectures and checkpoints)
2. Untangle it (lectures)
3. Challenge yourself (homework)
4. Play with it (labs)
5. Close the loop (discussion)
The order
of the above items is critical.
The first exposure you will have to the material will be in the prelecture (1). These are research-based multimedia presentations designed to introduce the key ideas/concepts of the lecture.
You will do these on your own prior to each lecture.
This first step should be taken very seriously, as all of the following items
depend on this pre-exposure.
To get the most out of lecture your participation is required both prior to
and during each lecture! Before every lecture you will be required to work
through a brief "checkpoint" on the Web. Each checkpoint will probe your understanding
of the prelecture material for that lecture, and must be completed by
6am on the day of the lecture to receive credit. There are no "bad" checkpoint
answers. You will receive full credit if you give it your best shot and answer
all the questions.
The lecture
(2) will take the concepts you have read about and expand/explain them, usually
with the aid of demonstrations. The lectures themselves will be interactive,
and your participation is strongly recommended. Student questions and comments
in class are encouraged, especially related to concepts and problems you found
difficult in the checkpoints. You will participate using the i>clicker and will get full credit if you give your best shot. You can also earn "extra-credit" for the questions you answer correct.
The Web-based homework (3) covering each week's material is due the
following week. This means you will have the background
of working through the prelecture and checkpoint of two lectures to guide you in finishing
each weekly homework assignment. Homework problems are designed to test your
understanding of the concepts as well as developing problem-solving skills.
The weekly
lab cycle (4) is designed to give you the opportunity to explore the concepts
you have encountered in lecture.
To cap things off, a 2-hour weekly Discussion section (5) will go over the
concepts you have learned about in the previous week's lectures,
lab and homework. Also there will be open office hours every week to give
you one-on-one assistance if you need more help; do not be bashful about taking
advantage of these!
In order to succeed in Physics 211, you must not fall behind! This course
covers a large amount of new material, and the understanding of new topics
usually requires mastery of previous material.
To help you keep track of "what is due when" we have put together a handy
Web based daily planner, available on the course
webpage.
Course
Component Details
You are required to complete a web-based prelecture and checkpoint prior to each lecture. The prelectures are web-based multimedia learning activities that include embedded questions. You may attempt each question several times, however you must get the questions correct to complete the activity. You will receive 2 points for each prelecture you complete. Once you have completed the prelecture, the checkpoint will be available. While we don't expect you to get correct answers to all of the checkpoint questions, they will be checked for a good faith effort. Each completed checkpoint is worth 1 point. There is no late credit for prelectures or checkpoints.
You can miss up to three unexcused prelectures and checkpoints without
penalty.
Lectures:
Since you will already have been exposed to the basic concepts through the prelecture, the lectures will spend relatively little time in the traditional lecture format. The primary focus of the lecture will be on expanding your understanding of the material based on your checkpoint responses. This will take the form of interACTive learning segments (ACTs). During
these segments students will work in groups on a specific assigned problem and
can discuss the results with other students and with the lecturer. This will
allow the instructor to pinpoint problems in understanding and deal with them
before moving on. The purpose is to help you understand, and your participation
is critical.
In order to
provide an environment more conducive to participation and interaction, each student
will have an "i-clicker" with which to answer various questions during lecture. You will receive one point based on your participation in each lecture. You may also earn up to one additional "bonus" point for each lecture based on the fraction of the ACTs you answer correctly. These bonus points will be directly added to your Homework/Quiz final score. For example, if you get 50% of the ACTs correct in each of the 26 lectures, you would earn 13 "bonus" points that would directly increase your Homework+Discussion score.
The
notes from each lecture will be posted on the course webpage. You can miss
up to three unexcused lectures without penalty.
Each week
you are responsible for completing a computer-based homework assignment. These
assignments are graded and are an important part of the course. The only
way to really understand these topics is to work lots of problems.
To start
work on a homework assignment, click once on the "smartPhysics" link on the Physics
211 homepage and then click on the assignment you wish to do. You should try
to finish each homework assignment before the deadline since this is the
only way to earn full credit, but you can still get 80% credit for finishing
a problem up to one week after its deadline.
You may
work a problem or part of a problem as many times as you like.
Each week
you will attend a two-hour discussion section conducted by a TA. These sections
will be active learning sessions in which you will work in small groups solving
problems provided to you by your TA. Discussion sessions are designed to aid
you in the understanding of the course material. You will find them beneficial
in preparation for the hour exams.
During the
discussion sessions we often do one of the exercises in Tutorials in Introductory
Physics. It is important that you bring this book to each discussion session.
At
the end of each discussion session, your TA will administer a short quiz
(usually about 20 minutes in length) based on the current material. This
quiz will be graded and recorded in the gradebook. It is important to bring
your calculators to each discussion session.
It is important to
come to your discussion section on time. If you arrive more than 10
minutes late your will get zero on the quiz.
Since there are only 9 quizzes during the whole semester, you can not miss more than 3
of these. After 3 excused
quizzes, any additional missed quiz will receive zero, even if you have an
excuse.
The
laboratory portion of Physics 211 will consist of eight 2-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. You
will complete the lab write-ups during the lab section and hand them in
at the end of the lab section. Additionally, all labs (except the Laboratory
Orientation) will require completion of pre-labs which are to be handed
in at the beginning of the relevant lab section. Your total laboratory score
will be worth 15% of your grade. Of the 20 points allotted for each laboratory,
15 points will be awarded for participating in and completing the laboratory,
and answering questions in the lab write-up and up to
5 points will be awarded based on the answers to questions in the prelab.
It is
important to come to your lab section on time. If you arrive more than
10 minutes late your will get zero on the lab.
Since there are only 9 labs during the whole semester (including Lab 0 which
is an orientation), you can not miss more than 3
of these. After 3 excused
labs, any additional missed lab will receive zero, even if you have an
excuse.
Three
90 minute multiple-choice exams will be given. (See the Course Schedule
for the dates.) 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 a #2 pencil to all exams. In addition, bring your
official university identification card to show upon request.
Conflict
exams will be scheduled for those with a legitimate (documented) schedule
conflict. These are usually on the same evening but earlier than the regular
exam. Actual times will be announced in lecture.
Exam scores
will be posted in the web gradebook within 24 hours of the exam.
For those
of you intending to use Physics 211 to satisfy your James Scholar requirement
for an "honors" course, there are three things you must do:
1a. If
you are in Engineering, you must see Cindy Hubert in 231/233 Loomis, to fill
out an Honor's Learning Agreement, which your lecturer will then have to sign.
1b. If you are in LAS, you must go to 270 Lincoln Hall to fill out the Honor's
Learning Agreement, which your lecturer will then have to sign.
1c. If you are in some other College, please see Cindy Hubert in 231 Loomis,
and we'll figure out what the sign-up procedure is.
2. Complete the on-line
registration.
3. Turn in the 5 James Scholar assignments, which will be posted
on-line.
The assignments will involve simple web-research, reading of articles, writing
descriptions, and simple calculations. We hope you will find them thought-provoking,
and that they give you a better appreciation for the wider application of
the content of this course
Grading
Your final grade for Physics 211 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:
|
Prelectures+checkpoints+Lectures
|
100
|
|
Homework+Discussion
|
250
|
|
Labs
|
150
|
|
Hour exams (100 each)
|
300
|
|
Final Exam
|
200
|
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), and F (<610).
Note that we will NOT use the common 90/80/70/60 breakdown for letter grades; the cutoffs are generally higher. The reason for this is that 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.
Prelectures+Checkpoints+Lectures:
There will be 28 lectures (1 pt) , each with a corresponding prelecture (2 pts) and checkpoint (1pt). So if you completed all of these activities, they would add to a total of 112 points (12 points more than the maximum allowed). This is so that if you are sick, have a conflict, or just forget, you can miss a few of these activities without any penalty in your grade. We do not give EX's for these course components. In addition to the 4 points/lecture listed, you may also earn up to 1 "bonus" point per lecture based on the fraction of the ACTs that you answer correctly during that lecture. These bonus points will be added to your Homework/Discussion score.
Homework+Discussion:
There will
be 14 homework sets and 9 quizzes, for a total of 23 equally-weighted scores. Your lowest
score from this group of 23 will be dropped to determine your combined "homework/quiz"
grade. Once this score is computed, your bonus points from lecture will be added, up to a maximum score of 250 points. So if you had an average homework/quiz score of 90%, and 15 bonus points from lecture, your Homework/Discussion score would be .9 x 225 + 15 = 240.
Labs:
All 8 lab
scores will be used in calculating your total lab points at the end of the semester.
(No lab scores will be dropped.) Scores used in this calculation will be adjusted
to compensate for grading differences among lab section instructors.
You will
be able to view your grades on all components of the course using the course
gradebook, which is accessible from the homepage. During the semester, you
should check that your lab and quiz grades are correctly entered in the gradebook;
any problems here should be brought to the attention of your section instructor
immediately. Note, this gradebook is updated manually, so there may be a delay of a few days from when you complete an activity to when the score is updated.
The final
exam will be three hours in length and will cover material from the whole semester.
A combined final exam (for all three lectures) and a conflict exam will be given.
All questions
about your course letter grade should be directed to the main lecturer.
There will
be no make-ups for missed exams, quizzes or laboratory work in Physics 211.
Unexcused absences from hour exams or quizzes will receive a score of AB, which
is numerically equivalent to zero. Similarly, prelabs or lab reports that are
not turned in at the time they are due and in the lab section for which you
are registered will be scored AB, unless an excused absence is granted.
An excused
absence from an hour exam will receive the score EX. At the end of the semester,
hour-exam EX scores will be replaced by a weighted average of all of your non-EX
scores on exams (hour exams and final exam). Similarly, an excused absence from
a quiz will receive an EX and such scores will be replaced by the semester average
of all non-EX quiz scores. EX scores for prelabs and lab reports will be treated
in a similar manner. You can not have more than 3 quizzes and 3 labs excused
during the semester.
Typically,
EX scores for exams, quizzes, prelabs and lab reports will be granted
only in one of the following circumstances: (a) illness; (b) personal crisis
(e.g., automobile accident, required court appearance, death of a close relative
or friend, weather conditions preventing travel to campus); or (c) required
attendance at an official UIUC activity (e.g., varsity athletics, band concert).
In all cases you MUST complete a Course Absence Form and bring it along with the appropriate documentation (listed below) to the course secretary in 231/233 Loomis.
In case
(a), go to the McKinley Health Center. After you have been seen, you will receive
a Visit Confirmation note that you should take to the course secretary in 231/233
Loomis. (Do not take it to an instructor.) She will make a a photocopy
of the note for the course record book and will distribute copies to all of
your instructors (lecturer, discussion TA, and lab TA). You may choose instead
go to a private physician and obtain a written excuse. That excuse should contain
your doctor's name and telephone number. Take the excuse note to the course
secretary for recording, confirmation, and notification of your instructors.
In case
(b) contact the Dean of Students' Office 333-0050. (At night this number is
referred to as the Emergency Dean). The Dean's Office will subsequently send
you a letter and a copy to the course secretary. She will place it in the course
record book and send copies to all of your P211 instructors.
If you miss
an hour exam for any reason, contact your lecturer and describe the circumstances.
He or she will consider the merits of your case and determine whether an I score
is justified.
If you miss
a quiz or fail to turn in a prelab or lab report for any reason, contact your
TA for that activity and describe the circumstances. Your TA will typically
consult with one or more members of the course faculty before deciding whether
an I score is justified. You can not have more than 3 quizzes and 3 labs
excused during the semester.
If you fail
to take a regular or conflict final exam in Physics 211, you will receive an
ABS letter grade for the course, which will be interpreted as a failure (F)
in your semester grade report. Permission to change an ABS letter grade to an
I letter grade can only be granted by an authorized member of the Dean's Office
of your college. If an I grade is granted, you must take a replacement final
exam before the deadline specified in UIUC Code of Policies and Regulations
Applying to All Students.
