Physics 227, Fall 2011

COURSE INFORMATION AND REQUIREMENTS

Students registered for this course are assumed to have read and understood
all the information contained on this and all other pages in the course web site.

Textbook and required course materials:

Registration Problems

Students with registration questions or problems should email Ms. Stacey Jacobs:  sljacobs@physics.rutgers.edu

Lectures

Top

Lectures will be given in the Physics Lecture Hall (correctly labeled on map).

Monday-1 Thursday-1, 8:55-9:50
Monday-2 Thursday-2, 10:35-11:30

The lectures will have interactive components, in which you will be asked multiple choice questions, and you will answer by means of a Iclicker transmitter. There will be two types of questions. On the vast majority of the questions, you will not be graded on the correctness of your answers, but the fact that you did participate will count. On occasion, I will give an iclicker "quiz" question for which only the correct answer will get full credit for the question. For each day's lecture, there is a maximum of 3 points. We plan 26 lectures, and attending 10 is enough to give you full iclicker credit. Your 16 (!) lowest lecture scores, including all excused or unexcused absences, will be dropped. (Please note that due to an issue in gradebook with dropping so many grades, this adjustment will be done at the end of the term after lectures are complete.) This is sufficient to cover most situations, including religious holidays. If you have an extended absence which has been excused by your dean for illness or family difficulties, you should consult Prof. Gilman.

Attendance at lectures is required. Some of the topics presented in lecture are not available in the textbook, and these topics will be included among the exam questions. Cell phone use (talking or texting) during lecture and talking with other students (except for discussion during the iclicker question period) are not permitted.  Also, a student who is openly not paying attention (for example, reading a newspaper) can expect to be asked a question.

Information about the course will be announced in lectures, and will  be posted on the main course web page http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ugrad/227_f11. In addition, information will be provided by email when appropriate.

Recitations and Quizzes

Top

Your registration for this course includes an assignment to a recitation section. Recitation sections meet once per week, starting on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

A short quiz based on material covered will be given in recitation each week. Your recitation grade, 16% of the final grade, will be based on your performance on the quizzes and your activity in recitation. You are strongly encouraged to participate in the discussion of problems and ask questions about aspects that you have not completely mastered. Each week's score will be of a maximum of 15 points, and the lowest two scores (of 12) will be discarded. This should cover any excused absences, so there will be no makeup quizzes or recitations.

You must attend the recitations for which you are registered. You are not permitted to attend any other recitation meeting unless you obtain permission from the instructors of BOTH recitations. However, this must not become habitual without officially registering for the alternate section.

There will be computer-based homework assignments each week using Mastering Physics. The Mastering Physics course ID for Fall 2011 is RUPHYS2272011.  Please register for Mastering Physics as described in detail here. Currently the deadline each week is set at 11:59 PM on Monday nights, though we encourage you to complete the assignment before the weekend. Solutions are posted shortly after the honework is due, so late assignments are not given any credit, and clock / computer / network problems are not accepted excuses. Certainly you should have looked at the problems before your recitation section, so you are prepared to ask questions and understand the discussion.

Instructor Office Hours

A key component of learning is one-on-one interaction with your instructor. This is your chance to ask questions and get valuable tutorial instruction. Your instructor will be available once per week at an office hour posted on the instructors page. If it is not possible for you to attend that office hour, or you just want additional help, you may attend the office hour of any other instructor. Often it is also possible to arrange a special session by email or phone, also. Don't be afraid! The instructors are there to help you, and they are often lonely!

Examinations

Exam	Date and Time	Location	Family name starts with
CH1	Thursday October 6 Time: 9:40-11:00PM	ARC 103 SEC 111 Physics Lecture Hall HILL 114	A - I J - M N - R S - Z
CH2	Thursday November 17 Time: 9:40-11:00 PM	ARC 103 SEC 111 Physics Lecture Hall Beck Auditorium, Livingston	A - I J - M N - R S - Z
Final	Tuesday December 20 Time: 4-7 PM	College Avenue - Main Gym College Avenue - Gym Annex	A - L M - Z
Final Makeup	To be announced.	To be announced.	By prior arrangement with Prof. Cizewski

The table gives times and locations for the two 80-minute common hour (CH) examinations and the three-hour final examination in this course. The CH exams will be conducted in three locations, and students are assigned to locations alphabetically according to family name. A label with your name on it will be pasted on one of the several versions of the exam and sent to the appropriate location. If you go to the wrong location, you will not find your exam.

All exams will be closed-book. The questions will all be multiple choice. For the midterms, you may bring with you a single "formula sheet", one and only one 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper (OK to use both sides) on which you may write any formulae or diagrams or notes or problem solutions ... that might be helpful to you during the exam. Information on the sheets may be handwritten and/or duplicated and/or printed, but no attachments are allowed. For the final, you may bring THREE such "formula sheets". The numerical values of relevant constants will be provided to you. You should certainly bring a calculator to the exams, as well as #2 pencils for the computer forms.

To help you in studying for exams, the MSLC offers free one-on-one tutoring and copies of exams given in this course in the last three years, along with solutions to those exams. In addition, you can consult any of the course instructors either during their office hours or by appointment or by email.

Makeup Exams

A makeup exam will be given after each common hour exam and the final, at a different time so as to avoid weekly conflicts.  This exam will be of equivalent difficulty and content as the regular exam.  In order to take the makeup exam, you will need a note from the Dean's Office documenting the reason for your absence and requesting Prof. Cizewski to allow you to take the makeup exam.  This policy will be enforced with no exceptions.  The Dean's Office has a form to fill out in the case of a conflict with another class or exam.

Grades

Your recitation instructor will assign your final grade, and may take into account factors like your class participation and your improvement (or deterioration) during the term. Active participation in lecture can also postively contribute to your grade.
To make your lives easier, take into account that makeups are not possible, and ease our administrative burden, you do not need to do all homeworks, quizzes, or iclickers to receive full credit for the class. You are automatically excused from 2 of the 13 Mastering Physics homeworks, 2 of the 13 recitation quizzes, and you only need to attend 10 of the 26 lectures to get full iclicker credit. If you need to miss a recitation, you may also try to attend a different section - please discuss with your instructor first, as many of the sections are very full.

Academic Integrity

• using an iclicker unit not your own on behalf of someone else, or asking soneone to do so,
• communicating or copying the contents of a reading quiz (given at the beginning of lecture) to someone else,
• communicating or copying the contents of a recitations quiz to anyone else,
• communicating with anyone else by any means during an exam or quiz,
• making use of unauthorized materials such as solutions manuals or published solutions from prior years,
• using a formula sheet for an exam other than one you made yourself, or making such a sheet for someone else.

However, we do encourage certain activities, such as

• working together on homework and exam review,
• discussing the answer to iclicker questions (other than the reading quiz at the beginning),
• studying together and critiquing each other's cheat sheets.

Ultimately, cheating in any form will not work in your favor: you will not learn the material for yourself. This can only have a deleterious effect on your own future performance prospects in other classes and in the world at large. Also, if you have any sort of conscience, you will live with the knowledge that you cheated the rest of your life. Maybe you will feel that you have "beaten the system" but you have only degraded yourself. Don't do it!

Email to Instructors and email to you!

Top

The instructors welcome email from students. Questions about the lectures, the demonstrations, the clickers and the web pages should be addressed to the course lecturer Prof. Gilman at rgilman@physics.rutgers.edu. Questions about the homework, the exams, and grades should be addressed to the course administrator Prof. Cizewski at cizewski@physics.rutgers.edu. Questions about recitations, quizzes, office hours should be addressed to your recitation instructor. Requests for help in mastering course material or in answering specific physics questions can be addressed to your recitation instructor or to Prof. Gilman.

To make email communication effective, certain care is necessary in composing email messages. Sending electronic mail is not an occasion to drop all punctuation, spelling, grammar, style or courtesy. Here is some advice:

• always sign your full name to email,
• always give a meaningful subject line. Please include the course number 227. In today's world of junk mail, mail without a subject line is likely to be discarded unread.
• write in clear, whole sentences with proper punctuation,
• check your spelling, and
• be courteous!

• start email with a greeting,  (such as "Dear Prof. Gilman")
• end email with a salutation (such as "Sincerely" or "Thank you for your help"),

When you send email you are typically asking for help in some way. Failure to take the time and effort to follow these simple guidelines will definitely make your instructor less inclined to spend his or her time and effort helping you!

Also, make sure you use an email address for which a reply will get to you successfully, preferably your eden account. We will definitely be emailing you vital information to the email that is listed on the roster, as the course progresses.  Other accounts, such as "hotmail" or "aol" or the like, may have storage limits and often bounce email. If you insiste on using some other email address, please log on to you eden account and create a file in your login directory called

          .forward

(starts with a period).  The first line of this file should contain the email address you prefer to use. e.g. 

yourmailname@mailservice.com

Make sure you end this line with a carriage return. 

Class Attendance

Top

Students are expected to attend all classes, take all exams, and do all homework assignments. But we know many of you during the term will have small illnesses, schedule conflicts, or religious holidays that prevent perfect attendance. To reduce the administrative burden on you and us, we drop the lowest two scores for lecture participation, recitation quizzes, and homework assignments. If you are missing one or two classes, you may report it through the University absence reporting website to indicate the date and reason for your absence, but it is not needed if will you only miss one or two classes all term. An email is automatically sent to us. For extended absences, you should see your Dean of Students for assistance to help verify these circumstances, and to send us a letter. If you know in advance you will miss classes, you should contact us as soon as possible; it is often possible for you to attend a different recitation section or lecture. If you cannot make a regularly scheduled exam, contact Prof. Cizewski at least 1 week in advance for schedule conflicts, or as soon as possible for emergencies.

Students with Disabilities

Top

Please see information here.