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PHYS1111-Introduction to Physics I

Sample Syllabus

This document is meant to be a sample syllabus for the course in order to give someone an idea of its scope and pedagogy.  This is not the actual syllabus for the class and students should refer to the on-line course management suite for their particular section in order to find the correct syllabus containing the specific policies, dates and deadlines for the semester and section they are enrolled in.

Instructor: Dr. Chad L. Davies
Office: IC 236
Office Hours: TBD
Office Phone: 678-359-5381
E-Mail: c_davies@gordonstate.edu
Home Page: http://www.gordonstate.edu/faculty/c_davies/phys1111hp.htm
Textbooks: College Physics, A Strategic Appraoch, 2nd  Ed., Knight, Randall D., Brain Jones and Stuart Field, Pearson/Addison-Wesley, San Francisco, 2007.
Required Materials:

·       Scientific Calculator (with Trig Functions)

·       Plastic Ruler and Protractor  

·       1 Bound Notebooks

Course Meeting Time: 9:00-11:00 am, MWF (the course is taught in a workshop format with combined lecture and lab times)
Semester Credit Hours:  4 (3-3-4)
Department: Mathematics and Physical Sciences

Course Description:  An introduction to elementary principles of algebra/trigonometry-based physics, including kinematics, dynamics, forces, momentum, work and energy, rotational motion and oscillatory motion.

Course Philosophy:  This course is designed for the student to achieve two broad goals.

·      To gain a detailed understanding of the basic physical laws which govern the universe. 

·      To learn to apply these laws to specific situations and, in doing so, learn critical thinking and problem solving skills. 

To do enable the student to do this, the course will employ several novel teaching/learning strategies.  Primary among these strategies is the recognition that physics is an experimental science.  The discoveries of Galileo, Newton, Gauss, Maxwell and others were based on experiences and observations that they made.  In this course, the much of the emphasis is not on which of their discoveries you can memorize, but on the process of discovery itself.  To learn you must experience, which is an active process.  For many of you, used to the traditional learning models used today, this approach will be unusual and possibly discomforting at first.  Yet this is how science has been done and how we will attempt to do it here.  Why have we chosen this method?  A number of studies have shown that students that learn using the methods described below score significantly higher on tests measuring both conceptual understanding and problem solving ability. 

The course will implement this philosophy in three ways:

·      Collaborative Learning.  In this course, you will work with other students in a number of ways with the instructor providing a greater amount of “coaching” and a lesser amount of lecturing. 

·      Spiral Learning. Here, the class goes through the material two or three times.  The first time through allows you to develop a conceptual understanding of what is happening.  On the second pass, a theoretical/physical framework is added to the picture.  Lastly, you will learn the mathematical techniques and methods to solve application problems using the principles learned. 

·      Real-time Data Taking. Much of the lab portion of the course will use the personal computer/Vernier LabPro Interface packages.  This allows the class to be able to test and relate events as they are happening.

            Given these tools, the course will be may be very different than those science classes you’ve taken in the past.  The answers won’t be trotted out for the student to examine in a lecture setting.  Rather, you will discover, as did the scientific greats of years gone by, the physical laws that govern the universe through experimentation and critical reasoning.  While it may take you a bit of time to adjust to this, the insights gained through these teaching methods have been shown to be vastly superior to the results derived from the old lecture/lab format.  The emphasis of the class becomes not “What do you know”, but rather “How do you know what you know”.  This is the fundamental question of science.

            Success in this course depends on your being willing to invest a significant amount of time to preparation for and participation in the course.  It is an old adage that for every hour a student spends in the classroom, he or she should expect to spend three hours outside of it.  In a traditional course, you would spend three hours in lecture thus necessitating nine hours spent outside of that.  Three of these hours will be spent in a lab section.  This leaves approximately six hours per week to be spent in informal activities such as doing homework, completing activities and studying for exams outside of the class meeting time.  Surveys at major public and private institutions (the University of Nebraska, University of Oregon, Tufts University, Dickenson University, Rutgers, New Mexico State University and Arizona State University) as well as at a number of two-year institutions show that the average student needs to put this amount of time into the subject to succeed.  There is, of course, a great deal of variation to this, but it’s a good rule of thumb to start with.  This course may well require more work than other courses taken at Gordon or in high school, but the workload is not out of line with that of other colleges and universities.  Learning how to analyze data, describe natural phenomena mathematically and use new computer tools only come with an investment of time.  However, those students who master these skills find them among the most useful learned while at college and tend to do the best in subsequent classes and command the highest salaries following graduation.

Method of Evaluation:  A student’s performance will be evaluated using several methods.  Failure to complete any portion of this course will be considered grounds for removal from the course or the assigning of a grade of F or I.

Homework/JiTT:  Homework will be assigned throughout the course and will take a number of different forms.  From the time of the assignment, the student will have 2 class periods to finish it and turn it in.  All homework will be turned in the student’s homework journal.  All work will be legible, logical and clear.  Partial credit will be given even if the correct answer is not arrived at.  To receive full credit, the student must not only provide the correct final answer but also a clear description of how the answer has been arrived at.  A note here; I have found that there is an extremely strong correlation between homework performance and overall class performance.  Additionally, the student will be required to complete a number of JiTT (Just in Time Teaching) activities via GeorgiaView Vista.

Activity Notebook: Work from the Activity Guide for the course will form a large portion of this course.  Therefore, if a student receives a D or F in the activity portion of the course, that will be the grade assigned for the entire course.  The activity journal will be kept in a sewn notebook and turned in periodically for instructor review and evaluation.  Each page is to be signed and dated as it is filled so as to provide a chronological record of your progress.  All sketches, data, graphs, tables, predictions and question answers must be made in your notebook.  You may use the same graphs, tables and data as your partners do, but all entries into the notebook should reflect your understanding of the concepts and data.  Hence, you are to write your notebook entries in your own words.  All of your activity notebook entries will be examined for completeness and graded on quality.  The instructor will look for complete sentences, clear, expository writing in procedure descriptions and data analysis, proper labeling of graphs and tables, appropriate units with numbers, accuracy of calculations, the expression of results to the correct number of significant figures and adherence to instruction.  It is ultimately your responsibility to see that your entries reflect a sound understanding of the phenomena you are observing and analyzing. The student will benefit from keeping this notebook as meticulously as possible as it will be the only thing allowed for assistance during quizzes and tests.

Weekly Quizzes:  About once every week a quiz will be given over the material covered during the previous week.  Each quiz will be worth the same number of points (20) and will be averaged together to determine this portion of the overall grade.  Due to the difficulty in arranging make-up quizzes these will not be allowed except in very extraordinary circumstances (i.e.-multiple excused absences and the like).  One quiz, however, will be dropped so as to allow for the off day or missed class.  For excused absences, the first excused absence will count as the dropped quiz.  Quizzes will be made of a wide variety of questions ranging from conceptual multiple choice type questions to those that are primarily mathematical in nature.  These are given to help the student assess his or her understanding of the material on an interim basis between exams. 

Exams and Final:  There will be three exams during the course as well as a final exam.  These are will be curved, though the use of a weighed curving system.  There will be no outside assistance allowed on the test though the student may use his or her activity notebook.  The exams will be given during class periods and students who participate in a school activity will be expected to have that time available or make other arrangements beforehand.  A schedule is provided to assist in planning for this.  The final exam will be comprehensive.

Course Policies:  The following policies will be in effect throughout the duration of the course.  The instructor will deal with any other situations that may arise on a case-by-case basis.

Statute of Limitations:  While the instructor does his best to accurately review and assess student work, instances may occur where an error in assigning a grade may occur.  The student has exactly one week from the time of receiving a grade to ask the instructor to review the grade.  After this time has elapsed, all grades may be viewed as being carved in stone.

Cheating Policy:  Cheating is immoral, unethical, antithetical to the goals of higher education and a violation of the spirit and mission of the scientific pursuit of knowledge.  Additionally, dishonesty is harshly punished in the workplace.  Therefore, cheating, if caught, will carry dire consequences in this course.  If the student is caught cheating, the student shall be possible subject to any of the following punishments: assigning of a score of zero on the work, a permanent lowering of grade in the course, the assignment of a failing grade to the course, being reported to the Vice Presidents of Academic and Student Affairs and/or expulsion.  Cheating will be considered any case where a student has represented work or ideas as his or her own when they are not.  Reasonable evidence of this (mainly in the form of copying another individual’s work) will be considered sufficient grounds for prosecution.

Accommodations of Disability:  If you need to make academic adjustments for any type of disability, see the instructor during office hours or by appointment. 

Attendance Policy:  Though attendance is not strictly required, it “wouldn’t be prudent” for the student miss class for any but the most pressing reasons.  As the course will be strongly activities based, an interruption in attendance will make it hard to get all the exposure to the activities used to understand the material.  The instructor is required to report the last day of a student’s attendance if the student receives a grade of “F” or “WF”.  Excused absences will be considered to consist of the following: absence due to school activities as approved by the office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs, illness where a visit to the doctor was required, illness of a dependant family member where a doctor’s visit was required, death of a member of either immediate family or family members once removed.  In all cases of excused absence, documentable proof my be provided in the way of doctor’s notes, obituaries or a note from the VP’s office. 

Make-Up Work:  While missing class is a bad idea, it is occasionally unavoidable.  If a student finds that he or she must miss a class the student should contact the instructor at the earliest possible time to arrange a time to make up any missed material.  If the student waits more than a week after the absence to discuss the make-up with the instructor, the request will likely be denied.  For lab work, the students may not copy their present lab partner’s data, but instead must take it themselves.  While make-ups will always be made available for excused absences, the offering of make for unexcused absences is left entirely to the discretion of the instructor.  Factors such as frequency of tardiness and absence, student attitude, reason for the absence, etc. will be considered in these cases.

Late Work:  On the rare circumstance when work must be turned in late, the work will be assessed a 1 pt penalty for being one class period late and a 50% penalty for being two class periods late.  A piece of work will be considered late if it is not turned in within the first 5 minutes of class.  This may include those instances when the student is late or absent from the class on the day the work is due, at the instructor’s discretion (no skipping class to have more time to catch up on an assignment).

Copyright © 2000, Gordon College. All rights reserved.
Revised: January 09, 2015