PHYS 1402v -- Changes

Mon Feb 23 11:24:57 2009

Effective Term: New:  1109 - Fall 2010
Old:  1089 - Fall 2008
Department: New:  11140 - Physics & Astronomy, Sch of
Old:  11140 - IT Physics & Astron, School of
Faculty
Sponsor Name:
New:  James Kakalios
Old:  Kenneth Heller
Faculty
Sponsor E-mail Address:
New:  kakalios@umn.edu
Old:  
Requirement
this course fulfills:
New:  PHYS - PHYS Physical Sciences
Old:  PHYS SCI/L - PHYS SCI/L Physical Science with Laboratory Core
Criteria for
Core Courses:
Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed core requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or method.

Core courses must meet the following requirements:

  • They explicitly help students understand what liberal education is, how the content and the substance of this course enhance a liberal education, and what this means for them as students and as citizens
  • They employ teaching and learning strategies that engage students with doing the work of the field, not just reading about it.
  • They include small group experiences (such as discussion sections or labs) and use writing as appropriate to the discipline to help students learn and reflect on their learning.
  • They do not (except in rare and clearly justified cases) have prerequisites beyond the University�s entrance requirements.
  • They are offered on a regular schedule.
  • They are taught by regular faculty or under exceptional circumstances by instructors on continuing appointments. Departments proposing instructors other than regular faculty must provide documentation of how such instructors will be trained and supervised to ensure consistency and continuity in courses.

New:
The course will give students an understanding of basic physical phenomena and principles, in particular, Electricity, Magnetism, Maxwell’s Equations and Electromagnetic Inductance and Waves.  They will be required to employ mathematical reasoning when applying these concepts and principles to determine quantitative solutions to problems, using math at a level up to and including calculus.  They will work in small peer groups in weekly Discussion sections, solving context-rich problems, applying the concepts described in the lecture sections.  Students will perform hands-on experiments that test and amplify concepts presented in lecture in weekly two-hour lab sections, again working in small peer groups.  The students are encouraged in lab section to develop hypotheses and make predictions of the expected outcome of their experiments, which they then test through direct measurement.
Old:
Lectures, recitation, and laborator cover the same material at the same time.  Topics are given below:

Week 1                Gravitation                       

Week 2-3        Charge, Force, Electric Field & Gauss Law                               

Week 4-5        Potential, Capacitance, Current                               

Week 6-7        D.C. Circuits, Magnetic Field               

Week 8-9        Magnetic Field, Faradays Law                                       

Week 10-11        Magnetism, Inductance, AC Circuits               

Week 12-13        Maxwells Equations               

Week 14-15        Electricity and Magnetism               
Provisional
Syllabus:
Please provide a provisional syllabus for new courses and courses in which changes in content and/or description and/or credits are proposed that include the following information: course goals and description; format/structure of the course (proposed number of instructor contact hours per week, student workload effort per week, etc.); topics to be covered; scope and nature of assigned readings (texts, authors, frequency, amount per week); required course assignments; nature of any student projects; and how students will be evaluated.

The University policy on credits is found under Section 4A of "Standards for Semester Conversion" at http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/senate/documents/policy/semestercon.html . Provisional course syllabus information will be retained in this system until new syllabus information is entered with the next major course modification, This provisional course syllabus information may not correspond to the course as offered in a particular semester.

New:   Phys 1402V.001
Honors Physics II - Syllabus
Spring 2009 1115 MTWF Phys 131
Thomas Walsh (email: tfw@physics.umn.edu)
Syllabus
Posted Monday, January 12th 2009, by Thomas Walsh
Valid dates: Monday, January 12th 2009 - Saturday, January 12th 2013
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Physics 1402 Syllabus
Instructor: Tom Walsh, 331 Physics, Tel: 624-1371, email: tfw@physics.umn.edu
Office Hours: to be posted on these web pages after the first week.
Web Site: you are looking at it
Materials: Same as for 1401--"Physics for Engineers and Scientists", Ohanian and Markert, third edition, 2 volumes in paper; Lab Notes for 1401; Lab Notebook or Logbook (2077s, $3.75 or a fancier one if you like. Given its importance in the course you may want to invest in a nicer one); a few 3x5 cards for quiz notes. A calculator, preferably not a programmable one.
Lectures: MTuWF except quiz Fridays. We will cover almost all of Chapters 22-35 of Volume 2 of the text).
Discussion Sections: Thursdays, starting the first week. You will solve problems in groups as in 1401.
Labs: Labs do not meet the first week. Our lab room is Physics 215, second floor north side of the building As of this writing they will all meet in Room 215. Your lab grade will be based, as in 1401, on a lab logbook documenting your activities as well as two papers to be submitted over the course of the semester. You must complete all laboratory units, as indicated by your TAs signature in your log book, in order to get a passing grade in the course. Your laboratory logbook should be as in 1401. The cheap 2077s is fine as is any fancier lab notebook of similar format. This notebook is an important part of the course and you should pay careful attention to how you keep it. You should look on this as the prototype of laboratory or other logbooks you will maintain later in your professional career.
Quizzes: Four of them, February 13, March 6, April 10, May 1. The lowest score will be dropped, so you can miss one for any reason. No makeup or outside quizzes except for documented medical cases and documented University athletic events according to University policy. You can use a 3x5 card of notes, writing implements and a calculator.
Final Exam: Three hours to be announced later.
Homework: Each Friday a number of exercises or problems from the text will be posted on the website. Of these three or four will be designated as homework to be passed in at the start of the next discussion session. Homework will only be accepted then; late homework does not exist. You can and should work problems with other students. But your actual homework solutions should be written out by you. This semester we have an assigned TA to grade homework. Hopefully this will work better than last semsester
Remarks: For the policy on homework, quiz and final exam solutions, please check the syllabus for 1401. Nothing has changed. Also, you are responsible for all University policies on academic honesty.
Grades: As for 1401, your grade will be constructed as follows: 35%--best three of four quiz scores; 25%--final exam; 30%--laboratory; 10%--homework. There will be +- grading but for guidance here is a rough guide to final grades: A is about 86%-100%; B is about 72%-85%; C is about 58%-71%; D is about 44%-57%; F is 0%-43%. I am usually pretty liberal with grades with one exception--given the A- grade option I do not give A's lightly.
Liberal Education Core Requirement
This class satisfies the University of Minnesota Liberal Education requirement of a physical science course with a laboratory component, as part of the Liberal Education Core.  Discoveries and inventions that have profoundly altered the course of human history arose from the physical sciences.  As citizens and voters (whether in the United States or in another country), today’s students will be called upon to make decisions on such topics as global climate change, alternative energy sources and resource management.  A familiarity with the methods and findings of the physical sciences has never been more important and forms a crucial component of a common education.  

This class will expose the student to physical principles and concepts, demonstrate how these principles can be applied to quantitatively describe natural phenomena, and provide the student with an opportunity to perform hands-on experiments and measurements that replicate how physical knowledge is obtained.  All knowledge in the physical sciences is empirically acquired, and a proper exposure to the ways of knowing and thinking in the physical sciences requires a laboratory component to any formal coursework.  The lab component of the class will give you experience in making predictions based upon hypotheses, which are then empirically tested by experiment or observation, through which scientific knowledge is developed.  The language of the physical world is mathematical and students will be expected to employ mathematical reasoning in order to solve problems both qualitatively and quantitatively. Physics is a social endeavor, and the student will gain experience in cooperative problem solving, working in small groups with other students, in both the laboratory and Discussion sections of the course.

 
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