Physics 227, Fall 2009

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 Professor Mohan Kalelkar:  kalelkar@physics.rutgers.edu

Lectures

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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. Your four lowest lecture scores, including all excused or unexcused absences, will be dropped.

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.

Information about the course will be announced in lectures, and will often be posted on the main course web page http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ugrad/227 .

Recitations and Quizzes

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Your registration for this course includes an assignment to a recitation section. Recitation sections meet once per week, starting on Tuesday, Sept. 9th.

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 2009 is PCFALL2009.  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. 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 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!

Examinations

Exam	Date and Time	Location	Family name starts with
CH1	Monday October 12 Time: 9:40-11:00PM	ARC 103 HILL 114 SEC 111	A - K L-  P Q- Z
CH2	Monday November 16 Time: 9:40-11:00 PM	ARC 103 HILL 114 SEC 111	A - K L-  Q R - Z
Final	Friday December 18 Time: 4-7 PM	College Avenue - Main Gym College Avenue - Gym Annex	A - L M - Z
Final Makeup	TBA	To be announced.	By prior arrangement with Prof. Coleman

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 notes that might be helpful to you during the exam. Information on the sheets must be handwritten (not duplicated or printed) and have no attachments. 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. Coleman 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.

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!

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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. Rabe at rabe@physics.rutgers.edu. Questions about the homework, the exams, and grades should be addressed to the course administrator Prof. Coleman at coleman@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. Rabe.

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. Coleman")
• 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. 

Students with Disabilities

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If you have a disability, you must speak to the course supervisor in the first two weeks of the semester to make the necessary arrangements to support a successful learning experience. Also, you must arrange for the course supervisor to receive a letter from your College's Disabilities Coordinator verifying that you have a disability. A list of the College Coordinators can be found here.