PHYS 222: Enrichment Electricity & Magnetism

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Course Syllabus | Fall 2026

Instructor: Sarah Hagen

Email: shagen2@illinois.edu

Office Hours: 8-9 A.M. on Tuesdays in Loomis 279 (no office hour on 8/25, first week of classes)

Class Time:  5-6:50 P.M. on Thursdays in 2025 Campus Instructional Facility (in-person unless noted otherwise)

Class Breakdown:

Required Supplies: Calculator (phone calculators only allowed in exceptional circumstances), paper & pencil/pen (the digital equivalent is also allowed, but you must have paper & pen/pencil in weeks where homework is turned in)

Course Materials: All notes, practice assignments, and problem sets will be released under the Agenda tab before class. No paper copies will be distributed. If needed, students are responsible for printing out the material before class. Otherwise, a computer or tablet can be used to access the desired material during class (accessing material on a smartphone is only allowed in exceptional circumstances).

Homework Policy: There will be one problem set (and when applicable, the previous week's practice assignment) due at the beginning of class most Thursdays (when assigned the previous week). Assignments must be submitted on paper or via email in PDF form. There is no need to rewrite the questions, so long as it is clear which question you are answering!

AI Use Policy: Any assistance through artificial intelligence is prohibited during class sessions unless explicitly permitted by the instructor on a case-by-case basis. Use of such tools during class time will result in a score of 0 for that week's class assignment. Use of artificial intelligence tools for problem solving is permitted for work outside of class - if you choose to use it, use it as a resource for learning, not as its replacement.

Food/Drink Policy: Although the class takes place over dinner time, students should refrain from consuming food during class sessions, in accordance with CIF policy. Drinks are generally permitted. The deciding factor will be whether it is disruptive to other students and general classroom learning (smell, sound, space-taking, etc.; use your best judgment!). Students are expected to clean up any messes that their activity creates.

Grading Scale (minimum percentages are given):   

Homework/Problem Set Grading Rubric: Every part of a problem is worth 5 points in total (e.g., a three-part problem would be worth 15 points total) and each part will be scored as follows:

4 pts: Perfect solution, devoid of conceptual or technical errors.

3 pts: Solution is conceptually correct, but contains minor mathematical errors (signs, numerical factors, etc.)

2 pts: Solution makes good progress towards the correct answer, but contains minor conceptual errors or larger mathematical errors. (This is what you will receive for selecting a multiple choice wrongly.)

1 pt: Problem is attempted but there is no meaningful progress towards the correct answer and contains major conceptual errors.

0 pts: No attempt at a solution is present.

+1 point (on all problems): In-class Justification: Justifies answer of one problem (whether correct/incorrect is not important) through physical reasoning in class.

Course Grades:

Attendance & Participation: Regular attendance is an important part of success in this class. Please come to class on time and stay engaged! Students who arrive on time will receive full attendance points. Students who are on task for the entirety of the class will receive full participation points.

Classwork (Practice Assignments): You will solve these worksheets with your classmates during the class and turn them in at the end of the class. These assignments are graded for completion. If you haven't completed all the problems by the end of the class, you can turn them in at the beginning of class the following week and receive full credit.

Homework (Problem Sets): You can work on these problem sets during class if you have completed the practice assignment. Homework will be due at the beginning of class the following week. These are graded for correctness. In case you want to re-do questions you lost points on, corrected homework can be turned in the week after they were due for half credit. There will be no homework on the week before and the week of Physics 212 exams.  

Homework (Justification): To offset the advantage of artificial intelligence resources in the homework, each week that homework is turned in, you will have to respond vis-à-vis one of the previous week's homework questions at the beginning of class, justifying your answer and/or thought process in at least 2-3 sentences. The question will be chosen at the beginning of class; it is your responsibility as part of the homework to "prepare" this response. Excepting special circumstances or accommodations, no electronic materials can be used for the response. Providing a justification that shows some grasp of the main ideas will account for the final point on all of the homework questions.

At the end of the semester, each category will be weighted using the grade breakdown above, and the resulting percentage will determine your final grade in the course.