| Instructors: | Paul Wiggins (Lecture) Peter Shaffer (Tutorials) Jens Gundlach (Laboratory) |
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| Lectures: | MWF 8:30 - 9:20 | A118 Physics-Astronomy Bldg. |
| Tutorials: | Attendance is mandatory; locations and times of individual sections are listed in the Time Schedule. You MUST be present at the first tutorial meeting or you may be dropped from the course. | |
| Laboratory: | You must register for a section of 122Z as well as 122B. Attendance in mandatory; locations and times of individual sections are listed in the Time Schedule. You MUST be present at the first laboratory meeting or you may be dropped from this course. If you complete fewer than six labs during the quarter, and do not make up the work, your grade for the entire course will be 0.0! Completing only six or seven of the eight labs will reduce your grade significantly. | |
| Course Elements: |
The
various elements of the course (lecture, tutorial,
laboratory, homework, exams, etc.) are designed to meet
different needs of students in this course, who come from
many backgrounds, learn in many different ways, and have
many different learning goals. The purpose behind each
element and their interrelationships are described here. |
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| Office Hours: | Paul Wiggins (Lecture) TBA |
Study Center (AM018): Tuesday 11:15-12:00 (may move to Thursday exam weeks) or by appointment |
| Peter Shaffer (Tutorial) shaffer_at_phys.washington.edu David Smith dsmith4_at_uw.edu |
by appointment |
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| Jens Gundlach (Laboratory) gundlach_at_uw.edu | by appointment | |
| Teaching assistants will
be available weekdays from 9:30-4:30 for consultation in
the Physics Study Center located in Room AM018. (To
reach the Physics Study Center, go down the stairs that
circle around the Foucault pendulum and proceed toward the
end of the hall.) Students are encouraged to
gather and work cooperatively in small groups in the Physics
Study Center. Prof. Olmstead will hold her Tuesday
office hours there. The Lecturer in charge of the Study Center is Daryl Pedigo. Please let him know if TA's are not there during their scheduled times. |
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| Pretests: | There will be weekly short pretests administered HERE on the web. These are intended to start you thinking about the concepts that will be addressed in tutorial later in the week, and must be completed between lecture Friday and lecture Monday. Pretests will NOT BE GRADED or handed back. Completion of these tests will, however, be a factor in determining your final grade. | |
| Textbooks: |
Physics For Scientists And Engineers Vol II, by
Mosca and Tipler. (note that you can purchase access to an online version through WebAssign) Tutorials in Introductory Physics, McDermott, Shaffer, et al. The Lab Manual should be read BEFORE your first laboratory session. Students are expected to read the relevant sections in the book BEFORE class. Reading assignments are listed on the Schedule. Note: You can rent access to an electronic version of the text via WebAssign. Older editions of the text as well as comparable texts by other authors contain very similar information. If you plan to use this information in your future career as a scientist or engineer, it is useful to own a hard copy of a text; if you choose to save money by purchasing a used or older text, it will have minimal impact on Phys 122. |
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| Homework: | 1) Lecture HW
will be assigned each week. It will be posted,
administered and turned in on the web using the WebAssign
system. Homework will be due at
11:59 pm Wednesdays. Homework
turned in between midnight Wednesday and midnight Thursday
will be awarded 70% credit. Each student's lowest
(percentage) homework score will be dropped. 2) Tutorial HW will be assigned and collected in tutorial sessions. One problem from each assignment will be graded in detail, and will contribute to your score for tutorials. 3) Prelectures and Checkpoint Questions from SmartPhysics are to be completed before each lecture. You are asked to explain your reasoning of how to solve the problem, as well as give the answer. These are reviewed by Prof. Olmstead immediately preceding lecture, so 100% of the points are given before 10 am on a lecture day, and 70% before class at 8:30. Computers are available in the Physics Study Center from 8:30 a.m.-5:20 p.m. each day and at various other locations around campus. |
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| Exams: | There will be three
50-minute midterms and a two-hour final. The
midterms will include both multiple choice and essay-style
questions. Approximately one quarter to one half of each
exam will be based on material emphasized in the tutorials
and in the laboratory. The midterm exams will primarily
cover material from the few weeks prior to the week of the
exam, but may include earlier material as well. The final
examination will be comprehensive, and all questions will be
multiple choice.
All exams will be closed book with one 8.5"x11" sheet of notes allowed. Calculators are permitted. Laptop computers are not permitted, and the use of the text-storage capability now available on many calculators is not permitted. Cell phones and text messaging are also not permitted. Exams are to be your own work; you are not permitted to collaborate with any other person. The Physics department reserves the right to ask for valid identification from any student during examinations. The lowest midterm score for each student will be dropped. A grade of 0.0 will be assigned to students who miss the final examination or two midterms. There will be NO make-up exams. Students with outside professional, service, or career commitments (i.e. military service, ROTC, professional conference presentation, NCAA sports, etc.) conflicting with the exam dates must contact the instructor early in the quarter to establish alternate examination procedures. Students who miss an exam without making prior arrangements with the lecture instructor will drop that exam score. If you are ill with a contagious disease on the day of an exam, please contact the professor by phone or email BEFORE the exam (do NOT bring your disease-causing microbes to her office or the classroom!). Except for extreme circumstances, a final grade of 0.0 may be assigned to any student who misses two midterm exams. Students with special needs identified by DSS should contact the professor early in the quarter to arrange accommodation. Midterm exams will be held in Kane Hall on Thursday evenings at 5:00 pm. Midterms: Currently scheduled for Final Exam (to be held in PAB A118): 8:30-10:20 am, Tuesday, December 13 |
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| Regrades: | If you believe that the points on the
examination were incorrectly totaled or if there is a gross
error in the grading, you may return an exam for regrading.
To do so, you must resubmit the examination no later than at
the beginning of the lecture following the one in which the
exams are returned. Please attach a note describing the error.
Do not make any changes or marks on the other pages of
the examination. NOTE: Portions of each examination are photocopied. You should be aware that any request for a regrade may result in a regrading of the entire exam. Therefore your total score may decrease. |
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| Time Commitment: |
Each
quarter, the UW Office of Educational Assessment conducts
surveys of undergraduate courses. For many years, the
PHYS121-2-3 courses have been among the courses reportedly
requiring the most hours of work per week outside of class.
A typical course will show a span from 5 hours per week to
20 hours of study per week outside of class, probably
including some time spent on PHYS12xZ. Many courses
claim to require at least two hours outside of class for
each hour in class; PHYS122/122Z delivers. If you want
a good return on the investment of 7 hours per week you are
already committed to in class, tutorial, and laboratory, you
should invest at least that much time outside of formal
class meetings working on the course . |
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| Math Requirements: |
Note
that MATH 125 (Calculus II) is a co-requisite for this
class. However, it is the opinion of many instructors that
students who have already completed MATH125 are at a
considerable advantage in PHYS122. We will use the
concept of integration regularly in this class. For Spring 02 and Autumn 05, the correlation between Physics 122 grade and highest completed Math class is available here. (Note that only students who completed this question on the start-of-quarter survey are included in these averages.) |
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| Cheating: | Please don't even think about cheating. It is a real pain for the professor to have to write letters to the department chair, dean, etc., to report cheating, but she has done it before and will do it again. Your decision whether or not to pursue a technical career should not be hastened by the abnormally low grade obtained if you are caught or postponed by the uncharacteristically high grade you might obtain if you are not. | |
| Feedback: | Students are encouraged to give Prof. Wiggins
feedback through the smartPhysics checkpoints, where the
final question asks what you would like her to focus on in
lecture. You may also use these questions for general
comments and questions, as they will be reviewed before each
lecture. You are strongly encouraged to bring your
questions and comments to office hours. |
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| Course grade: | Concurrent enrollment in PHYS122 and PHYS122Z
is mandatory; students will receive a combined grade for
lecture, tutorial and lab. The final course grade is based
on: the best two out of three midterms (32%) the final exam (24%) lecture HW (9%) tutorial participation and HW (10%) Lab (14%) smartPhysics (6%) in class clickers (5%) See 122 Grading Summary for more details. The above distribution gives the following rough equivalents for 1% of your grade: 6 pts on a midterm ~ 6 pts on the final ~ 1 WebAssign Assignment ~ 1 week tutorial (pretest+HW) ~ 1/2 lab ~ 3 lectures smartPhysics ~ 5 lectures Clickers Be aware that many technical majors have a minimum grade requirement for a core of lower-division technical classes including the PHYS121-2-3 sequence. Therefore, each student is strongly urged to discuss departmental entry requirements with their undergraduate or departmental advisors, and plan their course loads accordingly. It is your responsibility to check your grades every week or two and report any problems to both the lecture instructor and the relevant TAs (and/or lab/tutorial faculty) immediately. Lab, tutorial and exam grades should be recorded for your review within one week from the date that papers are submitted for grading. Grading problems that are reported in a timely fashion will be investigated and, if action is warranted, corrected. The lecture, lab and tutorial instructors may choose to ignore grading complaints that are not reported in a timely fashion. |
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