BONUS POINTS for chapter 2 mini-quiz

I decided to give 1 bonus point to everyone who worked on the chapter 2 mini-quiz by the deadline, Friday night. You can see it in your My Grades page.

To encourage you to work expeditiously and efficiently on each chapter, I will award one bonus point each week to the students who work on the chapter mini-quiz by the deadline. This does not penalize anyone if they cannot make the deadline, but it will reward those who study as we go.

Given the point levels in our grade scale, this could be VERY helpful by the end of the semester.

Three new discussion areas

There are three new discussion areas for you to use in order to interact with Dr. B and Ashton, our TA.

1. Chapter 2, Describing Motion: exercises and questions discussion
2. Discussion for questions and tips on Chapter 3, Explaining Motion
3. Tardy Gulf Stream questions (for latecomers to the course).

The more you can interact with Dr. B and Ashton, the more you will learn. Everybody is different, and not everyone will like discussions, but many will, and if you like discussion posting, GO FOR IT!!

Concept Guide 1 is now available

BEGINNING OF MAJOR WORK
Here is the beginning of our major physics study for the semester, "Concept guide 1: Galileo and the laws of motion," which lays out a ton of different study tasks. [Snapshot of one portion, left]

Consider this your independent study guide to prepare for midterm 1.

All of our other study activities relate back to this concept guide. It is the nucleus of everything for the first part of the semester. Mini-quizzes, discussions, podcasts and any other study tool I introduce will be related to tis concept guide.

So concentrate on this page above all else.

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From time to time, Ashton Dacus (our TA) and I will set up new study tools. As soon as we set them up, we will announce them here in this Blogspot. So keep your eyeballs here every day!! Do some studying every week and do not get behind. This Blogspot will help you stay on pace and not get behind.

First big learning module this weekend or so

Now that Add/Drop is over, we can get down to brass tacks. Our first big learning module, for chapters 2-6, with organized concept guide, vocabulary lists and so forth will be released this weekend, maybe Monday morning first thing.

You have a teeny sample of the study materials now, in the Ch. 2 Mini-quiz, so you can skim and look over ch. 2 this weekend and try out the mini-quiz. Monday (if not sooner) you will have the BULK of the learning tools.

Gulf stream questions are graded now, too.

OK, I just went in and graded up the last dozen or so postings, so now all the Fist Week To-Do List tasks are graded.

If you posted a scientific question there related to the Hopkin reading, you got one bonus point. Everyone else loses out.

TurnitIn.com first week bonus points are IN

So far, fifty students have signed up and enrolled in my course area at TurnItIn.com, as requested in our First Week To-Do List. These students bagged a bonus point. It should now show up in your My Grades page in Webcourses.

If you have not signed up yet for TurnItIn.com, please do so now. Although you do not get a bonus point, you will need it to work on 50 of your points this semester, in writing assignments.

Add/Drop closes tonight; switch back to lecture section.

Some of you have switched from lecture sections on campus to this online section.

Time to reconsider that strategy.

I highly recommend that you switch back in to the regular lecture section. You will find that face-to-face lecture offers significant advantages that we cannot translate to an online course. Each lecture section has plenty of open spots. Better switch back to lecture by midnight.

Get textbook!

TEXTBOOK PURCHASING

1. I-chapters     This web site allows you to order the entire book as a hard copy, ebook and even individual chapters. Problem solving manual is there, too. I think they have some discount codes, so read carefully. Search the author name or ISBN.


2. Do not buy the CengageNOW subscription. We will not be using it this semester.

 

REQUIRED MATERIALS:
For our course, the textbook (ISBN-13: 978-0-495-49027-2) and the problem solving manual (ISBN-13: 978-0-495-01093-7) are required.

FAIR WARNING:
You can also purchase from Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, but some of my students last semester got hornswoggled by significant delays at Amazon.com. That is when we started using the i-Chapters, one chapter at a time.

First day of classes

Head over to Webcourses now for the "First Week To-Do List" of easy online tasks for the first week, due by Friday night, and with a few bonus points. The main physics learning modules will be released on Monday, Jan. 14. You can start reading ahead and scanning diagrams on your own in chapters 2-8, if you like.