Physics
213
Course
Description
Goals
The goals of this course
are to help you learn the basic ideas of thermodynamics
and how they relate to modern applications. The
approaches used to achieve these goals involve 1)
lectures to interactively discuss and demonstrate the
principles, 2) interaction with instructors in
discussion sections to provide one-on-one help with
concepts and problem solving, 3) laboratory experiments
allowing you to actively explore these principles, and
4) computerized homework on the World Wide Web using the
TYCHO system.
Background
Needed
Credit for Physics 211
and credit or concurrent registration in Math 242 are
prerequisites for Physics 213. We expect you to have a
good understanding of classical mechanics and to be able
to differentiate and integrate simple functions. We also
deal in this course with combinatorics and some ideas
from statistics.
Lectures
Three 50-minute lectures
will be given each week, on Monday, Wednesdays, and
Friday. In addition to the traditional presentation of
lecture and demonstration material, each lecture will
involve a few interactive learning sessions (we call
them ACTs). During these sessions students will work in
groups on a specific assigned question and will discuss
the results with other students and with the
instructors. This will allow the instructor to pinpoint
problems in understanding and deal with them before
moving on. The purpose is to help you understand; your
participation is necessary for this to occur.
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. Some minor
credit will be assigned for each lecture in which the
clickers are used (but only one lecture per day per
student)
Come to the lecture! We
will go through examples and ACTs which are not
available in the published lecture notes, and the
lecture discussion will elaborate on the material
published in the lecture notes.
We still want to retain the feature that you can ask questions or make comments on confusing issues from the previous lecture. This feature is now enabled via the CheckPoint AskTheProf assignment in smartPhysics. These assignments are made before each lecture, but there are no 'points' for submitting a question (it's for your own benefit!).
The Lecture notes will be
available at TIS, Follett's and University Bookstores.
Note that the lecture slides may be modified somewhat
from the published notes due to the necessity for making
corrections, correcting typographical errors, etc. The
most updated version of the lectures (including answers
to ACTs) will be available on the 213 syllabus after all lectures
on a given day are given.
Do not let yourself get
behind! This course covers a large amount of material.
The understanding of new topics will frequently require
knowledge of previous material.
Discussion
Sessions
Each week (starting the
first) 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 presented to you by your TA. Discussion
problems are designed to aid and test you in the
understanding of the course material; you should find
them beneficial in preparation for the hour exams. The
solutions to these problems will be posted online (see
link off the course homepage) at the end of each week.
During each discussion
session (except the first week), your TA will administer
a short quiz (usually about 15-20 minutes in length)
based on the material covered in the previous week's
lectures and homeworks, including homework due at the
beginning of the current week. The quiz will be graded
and recorded in the gradebook.
If you cannot attend your
regular discussion section on a particular week due to a
conflict, contact your discussion TA at least the week
before your conflict. It is usually possible to attend
an alternate section on these occasions.
Lab
Sessions
Each of the 2-hour
laboratories will involve a series of activities,
including (i) setting up simple experiments to study
topics studied in class, (ii) making predictions about
the outcome of your experiments, (iii) performing
measurements of different phenomena you have studied,
(iv) analyzing your results, and (v) answering questions
concerning your results and predictions. In addition, at
the beginning of each lab, you are expected to turn in
your Prelab, a short set of questions designed to
address the main topics of the lab. The Prelab will be
graded and will count for 1/4 of your lab grade.
If you miss a lab
experiment, consult your laboratory instructor as soon
as possible. It may be possible to make up a laboratory
experiment later in the week, if the equipment has not
yet been dismantled. Laboratory experiments are set up
on Monday morning and are taken down after the last
section during that week. For a listing of all of the
sections, go here.
If a make-up laboratory is not possible, an EX grade
will be assigned for excused absences. Missed and
unexcused labs will be assigned a grade of zero. This
penalty can have severe consequences.
TYCHO
(our WWW homework and gradebook system)
Each week you will be
responsible for completing a computer-based homework
assignment. These assigments are graded and are an
important part of the course. NOTE: Students are
expected to solve the homework problems, not copy them
from someone else, or some other resource. Much of the
learning of any new topic comes from struggling to
figure out problems.
LOG-IN and LOG-OUT: Some
of the on-line activities (homework, gradebook, etc.)
for this course run on a secure server and must be
logged into. Students enrolled in (and staff associated
with) the course must log in using their UIUC NetID and
their ph password (this is the same id and password used
to access the U of I Direct registration system and the
CCSO dial-up system). If you are enrolled in the course
and are having trouble logging in, send email to
rwiltfon@illinois.edu. You should always log out of the
secure server at the end of your work session.
Many homework pages use
symbol font for mathematical equations. Without symbol
font equations will be difficult to read, e.g. you will
see "p" instead of "pi". Symbol font is usually
available on Macs and PCs without any special effort.
To start work on a
homework assignment, click on "SmartPhysics" on the
Physics 213 homepage. Then click on the assignment you
wish to work on. To receive full credit, the homework
must be completed by the date indicated on the
assignments page (usually 8 am on the Tuesday, on
Thursday the week of the midterm, and on Saturday the
last week of the course -- look at the syllabus). Homework completed
during the week immediately following the due date will
be accepted but will earn only a maximum of 80% of the
original grade. Homework submitted more than 7 days
after the original due date (i.e., after 8AM on the next
Tuesday) will not receive any credit; note: the final
homework is due the last week of class, and must be
completed on time. Although all of the homework problems
appear on the Homework index page, homework problems for
all but the current week are generally not available.
The homework problems will be made available at least
one week before they are due.
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.
The
online Quiz is in the same form as an exam, i.e.,3- and
5-option multiple choice. It is due at
the same time as the Homework; however, there is NO late
turn in option for the online Quizzes (and unlike the
Discussion quizzes, none of these are dropped).
The
Quiz is worth 20% of the weekly homework score; the
other problems comprise the remaining 80%.
Exams
Exams are machine graded
and consist of multiple-choice questions scored as
follows:
- Three-Choice Multiple
Choice (3 points each, no partial credit)
- Five-Choice Multiple Choice
(6 points each, partial credit option)
On
five-choice multiple choice questions there is a partial
credit option. If the student are unable to do the
calculation which will result in the correct answer, you
may elect to accept partial credit for successfully
eliminating unphysical answers. If you mark two answers,
one of which is the correct answer to the question, you
will receive 3 points for the question. If you mark
three answers, one of which is the correct answer to the
question, you will receive 2 points for the question.
In
order to reduce the incidence of inappropriate conduct
during exams, we reserve the right to employ a variety
of methods, including photographing the exam rooms,
performing statistical analyses on exams, controlling
the seating arrangements during the exams, etc. In
fairness to the entire class, students found guilty of
inappropriate conduct will incur consequences according
to the infraction, including receiving a zero on the
exam, an F in the course, etc.
Midterm
Exam
The midterm is a 90
minute exam, given at 7 PM on the Monday after the
fourth week of the course. See the syllabus for the exact date.
You will be assigned a room for the exam based on your
discussion section, and attendance will be taken by your
discussion TA. Bring a calculator and pencils to the
exams. In addition, bring your official university
identification card to show upon request.
A conflict exam will be
given at 5:15 PM on the same evening as the regular
exam. We will announce procedures for signing up for the
conflict exam.
A midterm exam review
session will be held the day before the midterm. See the
syllabus for time and place.
Final
Exam
The final exam will last
two hours and will cover material from the entire
course. The final exam dates will be announced by the
fifth week of the course. You will be assigned a room
for the exam based on your discussion section, and
attendance will be taken by your discussion TA. Bring a
calculator and pencils to the exams. In addition, bring
your official university identification card to show
upon request. All questions about grading policy or any
of your grades should be directed to the Exam Master.
Grading
Your final grade for
Physics 213 will be based your total score on all the
components of the course. The total score is the sum of
your scores on the final exam (350 pts), the midterm
exam (200 pts), four labs (145 pts total), six smartPhysics homework sets (116
pts total), six online
quizzes (29 pts total), quizzes (145 pts total), and
i-clicker participation (15 pts total). Rough guidelines
for letter grade ranges are: A+(960), A(935), A-(910),
B+(885), B(855), B-(830), C+(800), C(770), C-(740),
D+(700), D(660), D-(620), and F(<620), where the
number in parentheses is the lowest score for that
grade.
There will be 6
Discussion quizzes; your quiz grade will be the sum of
your 5 highest individual quiz scores.
NOTE: An EX quiz score is converted to the
average quiz score before the lowest score is
dropped.
All 4 lab scores will be
used in calculating your lab total at the end of the
semester. (No lab scores will be dropped.)
There are 21 lectures. You will
receive one point for each lecture attended, up to 15,
as determined by iClicker participation. Due to the
complexity of the iClicker software and the small amount
of credit for each lecture, no excused absences will be
given.
Since most students in
this course work conscientiously, scores on TYCHO
homework assignments will be very high. For example,
last semester most Physics 213 students had
homework-quiz and lab scores greater than 135 pts
(>90%). Consequently, high homework and lab grades
will not compensate for low examination grades. On the
other hand, you can seriously lower your grade if
you have low homework and lab grades. The real
payoff for working hard and doing well on the homeworks
and the labs is a better understanding of the physics
and, consequently, higher examination scores.
To give you an indication
of your standing during the semester, you will be given
renormalized (curved) scores for the midterm exam.
Recently, Physics 213 students who received final grades
of (A, B, C, D) had average exam scores of (91%, 82%,
70%, 61%).
You will be able to view
your grades on all components of the course using the
course gradebook accessable 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.
Unexcused
Absences, Excused Absences, and Course Credit
As discussed above, the
course grade is determined by performance on several
graded course components (lecture, homework, quiz, lab,
midterm and final exams). Absence from a graded course
component is defined to be the receipt of zero in the
gradebook (due to non-attendance or non-participation, e.g.,
skipping a quiz).
Unexcused absences from any graded course
component will be assigned an AB score (= 0), and the
course grade will be computed using that score. An
unexcused absence from the final exam will result in a course
grade of AB, which will become an F without a
Dean's intervention.
Excused absences from graded course components
will receive an EX grade. Article 1, part 5 of the Student
Code describes the University's policy on class
attendance. There are two kinds of excuses:
- Unanticipated absences (e.g., illness or
family emergency). To be excused, the student must
present provide written evidence to the course
secretary in 231/233 Loomis within one week of
his/her return to classes. This evidence (usually a
The
student should also bring a filled out Excused Absence form.
- Anticipated absences (e.g., official
University events or religious observance). To be
excused, the student must inform the course secretary
before the event. The student must also make
every attempt to complete the graded course component
at an alternative time (e.g., for quizzes and
labs, by attending another section). It is the
student's responsibility to make this arrangement by
discussing his/her schedule with the appropriate
course instructors. An EX will be given only if this
proves to be impossible. NOTE: NO EX's will be given
for iClicker participation.
If a
student has an excused absence from a graded course
component (except the final exam), his/her score for
that grade component will be determined by the grades on
the remainder of the labs or quizzes, or the final exam.
An excused absence from the final exam can only be
handled by a Dean, who can change an AB to an INC, to be
made up at a later date.
Requests for excused
absences will not be considered after Reading Day.
Missing Labs and
Quizzes
Course credit will only be given if the student
completes enough of the course components to satisfy the
course director that he/she has learned the material.
Labs and quizzes are integral to the course. If a
student has *unexcused* absences for more than two labs
or more than two quizzes, the student will receive a
grade of F for the course. Only the dean of students 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. Make-up of unexcused absences is not
permitted. If a student already has *excused* absences
for two labs or two quizzes, any subsequent *excused*
absence will still result in a grade of zero for the lab
or quiz that week. The student can make up the work
(i.e., receive a grade) by either: 1) Doing the
discussion material and taking the quiz within one week
of returning to class. This must be arranged with the
course director. Unfortunately, we have no way to make
up labs after the end of the week in which the lab is
offered, or 2) Taking the lab or quiz in another
semester when the course is offered. This will require a
note from the undergraduate office.
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