FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Department of Physics

Syllabus for Physics with Calculus I - Fall 2008

Combined Lecture / Lab (2048/2048L)

Course Description

This course will be a significant departure from the traditional lecture / lab format. It is an integrated lecture / lab with very little formal lecturing (at most 1 hour per week). You are expected to read and begin understanding the course material before each class. We will spend class time investigating phenomena, understanding how it fits within the body of physics knowledge, and applying the knowledge. You must be responsive, think, and perform hands-on tasks during class. The lab exercises will be interspersed within the class to provide optimal benefit. As this is a combined course, two grades will be assigned as explained below. This is the first of a two-part introductory general physics course intended for scientists and engineers.We will cover mechanics (kinematics, forces, energy, momentum, rotations, torque), oscillations, and thermodynamics.

We will be replicating the way science is done - investigate a phenomena, make conjectures, test conjectures, discuss, revise, test again, etc. With these approach, you have the opportunity to thoroughly understand the material.

Our course goals are to:

1. Develop a model-centered, constructivist basis of mechanics.
2. Develop strong laboratory skills using computer-based data acquisition and analysis tools.
3. Develop autonomous learning skills.
4. Learn to think clearly and simply about the physical world.

Course Strategy

Central to the course is developing an ability to think for yourself. There is no simple way to gain this skill, it comes slowly over time and with practice. You must be actively involved to learn the material. The course is structured with this in mind.

Preparation: You will be expected to read the book prior to class. It would be foolish to think that one can fully grasp physics by reading the material alone, so the class time will be spent clarifying and applying the material. Reading prior to class is common in many classes. One must read assignments in an English Literature class in order to meaningfully discuss them. Not only is reading a reasonable requirement, it makes for much more efficient learning. Students interviewed at other institutions indicated that spending 1-2 hours/week reading and outlining the material saved 4-8 hours per week on homework.

Classes: Laboratory investigations followed by additional group exercises and discussions will form the basis of this course. Results will be summarized and presented to the class and discussed. Class attendance is therefore vital to success.

Collaborative Work: Scientists and engineers work in groups as well as alone. Social interactions are critical to their success. Most good ideas grow out of discussions with colleagues. This course encourages and incorporates collaborative teamwork, a skill that is valued by most employers of scientists, engineers, and technicians. As you work and study together, help your partners to get over confusions, ask each other questions, and critique your group assignments. Everyone benefits from cooperative learning - expressing your ideas so that others can understand them helps clarify them for oneself.

Whiteboarding: Results of labs and group exercises will be summarized on whiteboards and then presented to the class. Discussions and comparisons of the results will follow. Whiteboard presentations should include the relevant facts / details from the lab or exercises, appropriate sketches, graphs (with labels), and other useful points. These whiteboarding presentations will form the crux of the course. The point of the presentation is to firm up your physics knowledge and build confidence in presenting material.

Socratic Method: Much of the class discourse will be through socratic dialogue. In other words, questions will get you to think about the underlying physics. And your questions will often be answered with more questions. The idea is that simply answering your questions may not lead to understanding. Having you link the ideas in your own mind to form the answer is much more useful. These are also used to test your self confidence.

Open Labs : To help you through this course, we will operate Open Labs during the week. Open Labs are times when the classroom will be open for your use and staffed by CHEPREO fellows. You'll have access to lab equipment so you can extend the labs that we do in class or complete missed parts of labs. You can also use the time to clarify questions on the material or homework. Or just hang out and work on your course work. No rules, just use it to your best advantage. Times will be set during the first week. Lack of use may result in the cancellation of hours.

Course Details

Textbook: We will be using University Physics by Young and Freedman, 12th Edition as our textbook. This comes with a student access kit for MasteringPhysics, our online homework system, and a free tutoring access. This is a new edition, if you have the 11th edition, you should be fine.

Whiteboarding Presentations: Lab and other exercises will be presented to the class via whiteboards and will be graded. Whiteboard preparation and discussion are the critical attributes of the grading. In other words, preparing a whiteboard with proper information (legible, good labels, appropriate graphs / sketches, etc) and then presenting it to the class and responding to the questions will garner the most points. Having the right answers on the whiteboard at the beginning isn't crucial, but having them by the end of the discssion is crucial.

Homework: There will be graded homework assignments for every chapter we cover. The graded assignments will be done through the MasteringPhysics web-based system. When you purchased your book, you should have gotten an information booklet and registration number. Full credit is assigned for completing 80% of the points in an individual assignment. This allows you to pick and choose a bit (and allows for problem errors in MP). You may also receive 12.5% extra credit for each assignment for completing 90% or more of the points. It certainly behooves you to do as many problems as possible, as they may show up anytime. You are encouraged to discuss the problems among yourselves; however, each of you is responsible for submitting your own individual answers. The system has a cutoff date after which answers are accepted for diminishing value for a limited time. No extensions will be granted, even in the case of network or server failure.

There will be two types of homework problems - skill building and end of chapter problems. Skill building exercises provide guidance in doing the problems - hints and other feedback is provided. End of chapter (EOC) problems originate in the back of the book, individually randomized for your assignment. Skill building assignments should help with EOC problems and should be done first, and are due two days ahead of the end of chapter problem sets. Generally, end of chapter problems are due a week after the material is covered in class. Note that practice skill problems are included with every assignment. You do not receive credit for these problems, but they may help you prepare for other problems.

In order to pass this course, you must practice the techniques you are learning. You must avoid the temptation to cut corners in working homework. Unfortunately, many people discover that this only cheats themselves and often this discovery is made when it it too late to fix the problem. By taking the homework assignments seriously, you reduce the overall difficulty of the course.

Lab Reports: Selected labs will written up and handed in for grading. The lab report format will be provided under separate cover.

Worksheets: In addition to homework, worksheet-based assignments will be handed out and graded. These often stress physics concepts over numeric problems and are similar to workbook exercises. You will be expected to prepare the worksheets outside of class time. Selected problems will be whiteboarded by groups and discussed in class. Upon completion of the discussions, the worksheets will be handed in for grading. Time is alloted to allow for corrections of the worksheets after class discussions.

Exams: There will be two in-class exams and the final exam. These exams will consist of both conceptual problems (which tend to be more qualitative in nature, like we discuss in class) and computational problems (which are more quantitative, like the EOC's). Formula sheets will be provided with the exams, as well as, prior to the exams on the class web site. The final exam will consist of two parts - one covering material discussed since the second in-class exam and the second covering all material of the class.

Makeup exams are given only under extreme circumstances. Notification of an unavoidable exam absence must be made prior to the exam (voice mail and email are acceptable). Excused-absence exams will result in adjusting the weighting of the other grade components or administration of a make up exam at the sole discretion of the instructor. Weight adjustments or makeups are given only after receiving a 60 or higher score during an in-class exam.

Class Web Site: Please look to the class web site for additional resources. The site contains this syllabus, problem assignments, homework solutions, and other resources. If you have any suggestions for improvements, don't hesitate to let me know.

Email List: A class mailing list has been established. You are encouraged to post questions, answers, jokes, etc to the list. I will monitor the list and provide guidance when appropriate. Don't be surprised to find useful hints floating around the list. Archives of the list will be kept on the class web site. Everyone in the class has been subscribed with their FIU email address. You may add or change the email account by subscribing / unsubscribing the appropriate addresses. Subscription details are found on the class web site. Note that the list is a closed list; therefore, all messages must come from a currently subscribed address.

Class Absences: Active participation is critical to the class; however, absences may occur. In general, there are four acceptable excuses for missing class: illness or medical emergency, religious holiday, family emergency, and approved university activity. To receive an excused absence, you must provide a signed paper note explaining why you were out, what work you missed, and what you will do to make it up. Documentation for absences should be stapled to the note. You are not penalized for excused absences. Advance notice is required for religious holidays and approved university activities. Advance notice for other emergencies would be greatly appreciated. Unexcused absences will result in grade adjustments.

Learning Environment: The goal of the course to learn physics. There are many resources to help you learn including your book, your classmates, your instructor, and the class web page. You should take advantage of as many of these as you need in order to learn the material. If, at any point during the course, you feel your performance is slipping, you must immediately seek assistance. Please don't wait until the day before the final to ask for help. I am always available to help, during office hours and non-office hours. Please email or call my office or lab to make sure I am available.

Work (labs, worksheets) should be handed in in a timely manner. For the most benefit, hand in material shortly after we complete the work in class. This allows for feedback that can be very helpful when doing homework and other exercises. Materials worked on before an exam must be handed in within one week of that exam for full credit. You may request extensions, but they need to be requested and granted to be honored.

This is a college course and we expect an appropriate learning environment. Cell phones, beepers, etc are not to be heard in class. Violators will have 10 points deduced from the next exam for each incident. Any form of cheating is unacceptable. The minimum punishment for cheating will be receiving an "F" grade for the course. Further action may be taken including referral to the University Academic Conduct Review Board. Students not attending the first two classes will be dropped from the course.

Grading

In order to foster cooperation and collaboration among as many of you as possible, grades will based on an absolute scale. This means that helping others will not jeopardize your grades, it will, most likely, improve your grade as explaining concepts to other develops understanding for yourself. The grading scale for both lecture and lab sections is:

The breakdown of components for the lecture section is:

The breakdown of components for the lab section is:

Please note that 35% of your grade is derived from non-exam work. This means you have a great deal of control over your grade. Also note that 20% of the grade originates in class work. It is in your best interest to attend class and actively participate. If you make the effort on the homework and classroom exercises, you receive credit for the work and are better prepared to perform well on exams.

Homework: Each assignment will typically contain 10-15 problems worth 1-5 points each. Getting 80% of the points in an assignment will result in a 100% score, with 12.5% extra credit for attaining 90% of the assignment points. The points can be obtained in any manner using the values of the various problems.

We will be using University Physics by Young and Freedman, 12th Edition. Below are the chapter sections we should cover during each week of the semester. Some sections will be covered in greater depth than others. It is important to read the sections prior to each class.

Class Schedule*: 

22

DATE	WEEK	CHAPTER-SECTION
Aug 26 - 28	1	1: 1 - 10 Units, Physical Quantities, and Vectors
Sept 2 - 4	2	2: 1 - 5 Motion Along a Straight Line; 3: 1 - 2 Motion in Two or Three Dimensions
9 - 11	3	3: 3 - 5; 4: 1 - 6 Newton's Laws of Motion
16 - 18	4	5: 1 - 4 Applying Newton's Laws of Motion;
23 - 25	5	6: 1 - 4 Work and Kinetic Energy
Sep 30 - Oct 1	6	7: 1 - 5 Potential Energy and Energy Conservation
Oct 2		EXAM I ( covering 1-1 through 6-4* )
7 - 9	7	8: 1 - 5 Momentum, Impulse, and Collisions
14 - 16	8	9: 1 - 5 Rotation of Rigid Bodies;
21 - 23	9	10: 1 - 7 Dynamics of Rotational Motion
28 - 30	10	11: 1 - 5 Equilibrium and Elasticity
Nov 4 - 5	11	12: 1 - 5 Gravitation
Nov 6		EXAM II ( covering 7-1 through 11-5* )
11		Veteran's Holiday: No Class
12 - 13	12	13: 1 - 8 Periodic Motion
18 - 20	13	14: 1 - 5 Fluid Mechanics
25 - 26	14	15: 1 - 5 Mechanical Waves; 17: 1 - 7 Temperature and Heat
27		Thanksgiving Holiday: No Class
Dec 2 - 4	15	18: 1 - 4; Thermal Properties of Matter; Review
Dec. 9	16	FINAL EXAM (9:45 am - 11:45 am)

*subject to change

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