Instructor: Daniel Kennefick
Office: Physics 213
Office phone: 575-5916
E-mail: danielk@uark.edu
Class meets MWF 12:30pm-1:20pm in Room 102 Kimpel Hall
Drills: Monday 3:30pm-4:20pm Rm 105 Kimpel Hall
Tuesday 4:30pm-5:20pm Rm 501 Science and Engineering
Wednesday 3:30pm-4:20pm Rm 133 Physics Building
Thursday 7:00pm-7:50pm Rm 133 Physics Building
Drill Instructor: David Sichuga
Final Exam will be Thursday, Dec 7 10:00-noon in KIMP 102
Textbook: Physics by James S. Walker (third edition, Prentice Hall, 2006)
Other required materials: H-ITT remote device (available in bookstore)
Course web page: http://www.uark.edu/campus-resources/cp1-2/index_cp1.html
Instructor's Office Hours – MWF 9:30-11:30am in Rm 213 Physics
Grading: Your grade will be assigned in one of two basic ways. You will receive either your grade on the final Exam, or a grade based on overall performance in the class the basis for which is described below. Thus there is a final exam only option, or a class-based option.
Three Sections of Course: Basic Mechanics Chapters 1-6; Dynamics Chapters 7-11; Gravity and Waves Chapters 12-15
3 Tests, one on each of the 3 sections plus one Final Exam
Test 1 (Chapters 1-6) Monday, October 2 in class (1 hour, open book)
Test 2 (Chapters 7-11) Monday, November 6 in class (1 hour, open book)
Test 3 (Chapters 12-15) Friday, December 1 in class (1 hour, open book)
Each test will be accompanied by a retest. After handing in your test you may go home and redo the test, if you wish. You may do so with the help of whatever books, notes and other materials you wish, and also in consultation with classmates. Hand in the retest at the class following the test (usually a Wednesday). The test and the retest will be graded together. Your score (S) will be the average of your test (T) and retest (R) score, that is S = (T+R)/2, unless S < T, in which case your score will be T. In other words, doing the retest cannot hurt you, but it will only help if you redo the entire test, including the parts you got right. If you do the retest, the net effect is that you will get half-credit for the parts of the test you got wrong the first time around but corrected on the retest. (Note that the final exam will have no retest).
Each test will have 3 questions, with each question worth 6 points, plus a short concept question worth 2 points. So each test has a total of 20 points available, making up 60 points for your total exam score.
Your exam/test score will be the best of the following three options
The total of your 3 tests (final exam not included)
The total of your best 2 tests plus final
Final exam grade only (your score multiplied by three to make 60 points)
Homework portion of grade to be 30 points
Homework will be given out in class on Fridays, to be due the following Friday. There will be no homework given on Fridays before an exam, and no homework due the week of Thanksgiving. This should make 11 homeworks in all. Your best 10 scores will make up your homework grade. Each homework will consist of 3 questions selected from the book for the week in question, with one point for each question. Generally a week's homework will consist of 2 web-based questions submitted and graded by computer and online and 1 paper-based question to be handed in during class and graded by humans. When web-based homework is used (and see below also for pre-class questions) the link will be provided at the class website listed above.
Class Participation portion of grade to be 10 points
There will be two components to the class participation grade, of equal weight (5 points each)
H-ITT remote devices. Each Friday will be a review session for the week (or, on Fridays before a test, review sessions for a test, encompassing the entire material to be tested). This will typically involve questions to be answered by the class with H-ITT remotes. Points will be given simply for answering a question, regardless of whether it is correct. If you answer half of the questions over the whole semester (there will most likely be 30-40 total questions) you will get 5 points, with fewer points awarded for fewer than half answered on a proportional basis.
It is important that you send me an e-mail giving me the remote number for your device. This is usually a five or six-digit number on the printed circuit board behind the battery (a few devices seem to have 4 or 7 digit numbers). When you have your device, open the battery compartment and find your number and then send an e-mail to me at danielk@uark.edu with the subject line “H-ITT:Register” (please written just so, with no spaces or any other words or characters) and the body of the message should just contain the following,
Name: <your name goes here>
Student ID: 123456789 [Note, not your social security number]
Remote ID: 12345 [The 5-digit number from your remote]
Web-based pre-class questions. Each week I will post on the web 3 multiple choice questions which will be due on Monday mornings well before class, based on a straightforward reading of the chapter which will be discussed beginning that day. I hope in this way to get an idea of how people grasp the forthcoming material for that week on the basis of a quick reading. If you correctly answer half of the questions for the whole term (there will most likely 30-36 in total), you will get 5 points, with fewer points awarded for fewer correct responses on a proportional basis.
Bonus points: There is an online survey associated with this course, which I hope you will take once during the first week or two and a second time at the end of the semester. As an incentive, if you do it both times you will earn 2 bonus points. The URL for the survey is http://sharrah.uark.edu/survey Just click on College Physics I and then enter your information and answer the questions before submitting the survey.
The total number of points is therefore 100 (bonus points come on top of this of course). The grading scale is fixed and runs as follows.
A 85 – 100 points
B 70 – 84 points
C 55 – 69 points
D 40 – 54 points
F 0 - 39 points
Posting of grades – I will try to keep grades posted and updated regularly on the website. For the purposes of posting grades I will assign each person a number. If you wish to be able to read your grades on the web you can sign into the online homework website and your “post code,” which is a 4-digit number, will be listed under your name at the top of the page.
The Outline of the Lectures runs roughly as follows. We will probably be able to stick fairly close to this schedule. Please try to read through each chapter before the week it is covered as the web-based multiple choice questions will ask elementary questions about this material in advance of the week’s classes. In the event of bad weather I will still be in class unless the University actually closes. However, when the inclement weather policy is in effect on a class day any grade-contributing activities will be postponed to the next available class.
August 21/23/25 – Chapter 1 - Units, measurement and “order of magnitude”
August 28/30 & September 1 – Chapter 2 - Motion along a line (i.e. in 1 dimension)
September 4 – Labor Day
September 6/8 – Chapter 3 - Vectors
September 11/13/15 – Chapter 4 - Motion on a flat surface or plane (i.e. in 2 dimensions)
September 18/20/22 – Chapter 5 - Newton’s three laws of motion
September 25/27/29– Chapter 6 - Friction, springs, strings and “real motion”
October 2 – First Test
October 4/6 – Chapter 7 - Work and Kinetic Energy
October 9/11/13 – Chapter 8 - Potential Energy and Conservation of Energy
October 16/18/20 – Chapter 9 - Linear Momentum and collisions between moving bodies
October 23/25/27 – Chapter 10 - Rotating and rolling motion
October 30 & November 1/3 – Chapter 11 – Angular Momentum
November 6 – Second Test
November 8/10 – Chapter 12 - Gravity and orbital motion
November 13/15/17 – Chapter 13 - Periodic motion and the pendulum
November 20 – Optional Review Session
November 22/24 – Thanksgiving Break – no classes
November 27/29 – Chapter 14 - Waves and sound
December 1 – Third Test
December 4 – Final Class
December 6 – Dead Day
December 7 – Final Exam (at 10:00 am)