The goal of this course is to make you familiar, at the conceptual and basic problem-solving level, with the physics of macroscopic objects at rest, in motion, and subject to thermal effects.

Physics is a subject (as is the case for all sciences) in which there can be little teaching. The student must learn the subject. The Instructors can advise, guide, assist and otherwise make the learning more efficient, but the student must be pro-active in assimilating the information into his/her world view. I believe this is qualitatively different process than the more frequently encountered authority figure declaiming "truth" and requiring the student only to memorize the information. Critical thinking, creative doubt and logical argument are the tools of the scientist. Moreover, the final arbiter is nature itself - that is, the test by experiment. One of the goals of the laboratory experience is to build confidence in the students ability to confront hypothesis and experiment and to extract the extent of confirmation of his/her expectation.

The basic procedure used in Physics 201 is as follows:

1. Read about the topic ( textbook) This is your primary source.
2. Untangle it ( pre-flight, lectures, discussion, office hours) Resolve questions & uncertainty
3. Play with it ( labs) Validate your new knowledge base.
4. Challenge yourself (homework) Calculate a quantitative expectation.
5. Close the loop ( exams) Demonstrate your new ability.

Reading technical material for content and understanding is difficult. This first attempt at learning is to read the assigned chapter in the textbook -- on your own and prior to lecture (1).   All of the following items are only helpful if this is done seriously.

The lecture (2) will not simply reprise what you have read, rather it is intended to resolve the mis-conceptions and difficulties you have encountered in understanding We will expand/explain them, often with the aid of demonstrations.

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 day's 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. However, you MUST answer all questions, including the reasons - otherwise, you will not get credit. The lectures themselves will be interactive, and your participation is required. 

Do not expect to learn everything from the lecture. Your reading of the textbook before and after the lecture and the problem solving sessions are where much of the learning is done.

As you might note, this is not the conventional approach. However, this process has been very successful at other major research universities as determined by groups researching physics education.

The weekly lab cycle (3) gives you the opportunity to validate your calculations and/or logically derived expectations against experimental observation. You are required to read the lab manual and come prepared. Sometimes the subject of the labs is somewhat disjoint with that covered in the lectures/discussion. However, this should not distract you from relating lab work to the rest of the learning experience. There is no work to be done on the web for lab.

The Web-based homework (4) covering each week's material is due at 5 pm on the Monday of the following week for 100% credit.  This means you will have the background of reading the text and the experience of lectures, problem session during the discussions and a hands-on lab to guide you in finishing each weekly homework assignment. Homework help is available in Office Hours. In general homework finished up to a week later (Monday) is given 80% credit. Homework problems are designed to test your understanding of the concepts as well as simple problem-solving skills.

To help you keep track of "what is due when" we have put together a handy Web based daily planner.  You can click here , or from the main Physics 201 homepage.

Success in Physics 201 relies on student engagement in learning the material. We are open to your suggestions and feedback. The Pre-Flights before each lecture and the in-class questions are venues for feedback.  Even though these are graded on participation only, they are an important element of the course since they tell us what you do and don't understand; it is to your own benefit to take them seriously. The lectures will reflect in part both by Pre-Flight information and by student questions. 

The only pre-requisite for this class is the calculus. There is not a great deal of calculus required, but we are assuming a good grasp of the concepts of trigonometry and algebra and familiarity with calculus concepts. If you are not comfortable with these subjects, please review early.

Textbook:
The required text for this class is the "PHYSICS for Scientists and Engineers" by Serway and Jewett.  Optional study guides and solution manuals for this text may 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.brookscole.com

Lectures:
Lectures are held in 2103 Chamberlin on Tuesday and Thursday at 9:55 AM, and you are required to attend and participate. You are required to complete a Web-based lecture "Pre-Flight" before 6am on Tuesday and Thursday 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 notes may be printed from the web.

During each lecture you will participate in answering multiple choice questions.  These questions are often based on lecture pre-flights, and will give you a chance to tackle in groups what you worked on alone before lecture. These conceptual questions in pre-flights and lectures will be a big part of your exams.

Lab Session:
Lab sessions are held in 4314 Chamberlin.   The laboratory portion of Physics 201 will consist of eleven 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, (iv) analyzing your experimental results, and (v) answering questions concerning your results and predictions. You must do at least 10 out of 11 labs to pass this course, irrespective of other grades you obtain.

Homework (Web based):
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 will be awarded 80%. No credit is given for homework completed after this 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.

Problem Solving Sessions:
Discussion sections  will emphasize collaborative learning of topics which have already been covered in lecture. Students will work in teams to help them master the concepts and problem solving techniques. One of the problems from each discussion period is graded to provide both the student and the instructors with feedback regarding student's mastery of the week's topics. You must participate in at least 70% of the discussions to pass this course, irrespective of all other grades you obtain.
 

Exams:
Three 1 hour multiple-choice exams will be given (See the Course Schedule). You will be assigned a room for each exam based on your discussion section. 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 two 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 201 staff.

Your final grade for Physics 201 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:

The cutoffs on total points for various course letter grades will be set such that roughly the following percentages are met :
A(15%), AB(15%), B(20%), BC(20%), C(>20%), D(< 10%) F(Hopefully, 0%) .

For some parts of the course the average score is typically very high, while the average score on exams is significantly lower. There is no reason you should not be able to score well on your web based homework and Pre-Flight assignments. You should also be able to do well on Labs and Discussions.  This means that on an absolute scale you cannot offset low examination scores by high homework/pre-flight/lab/discussion grades. On the other hand, you can seriously lower your grade by doing poorly on the homework/pre-flight/lab/discussion.  The payoff for doing well on the homework, pre-flights, discussions and labs is your confidence in better understanding of the physics which can be expected to result in higher examination scores.