Learning Module for Week 2 is now UP.

I have just activated a "learning module" for the second week of the semester. Look for the coffee cup icon on the course home page in Webcourses. Click in there and take a look:

1. The heart of each learning module is the concept guide. Everything starts with the concept guide!
2. The concept guide is filled with study tips, like vocabulary to be familiar with, exercises to work on, diagrams, comments on the reading and even which pages to read. The concept guide for chapter 2 contains a mini-assignment from chapter 1 for those of you who are rusty with the metric system. Everything else is from chapter 2.
3. In addition to the concept guide, you will also find a mini-quiz on chapter 2 concepts. It will help you gauge your understanding, and some students print it out and use it as a study tool for reading. In fact, it is designed to highlight the reading. You can take the mini-quiz as many times as you like, up until September 21, when Exam 1 goes active. All mini-quizzes go off the air that morning before the midterm exam.
4. There is a link to the "Questions concerning motion, from chapters 2-4" discussion area, for posting questions and helping your classmates with tips. My TAs and I will also be participating in the discussion threads. Many students benefit from these discussion interactions and see their grades improve.
5. I will add extra enrichment activities and tools to the learning module occasionally, so always keep an eye open during the week.

Note: whenever I add an enrichment tool to the learning module or any other change or modification, I will announce it here first. Sometimes I make several announcements in a single day. So always keep this Blogspot in your list of things to eyeball a couple times per day. Good.

First full week, look at learning module!

There is a new learning module in Webcourses, "Week 2, main work starts now" which can direct your studies for this week. The concept guide is always the center of organizing your learning. The mini-quiz lets you test your comprehension and prepare for my midterm exams, which are quite similar to mini-quizzes. The chapter mini-quiz is a learning tool, but it does not count for points on your semester grade.

We will be proceeding at roughly one chapter per week, so pace yourself now and stay in synchrony with the plan.

I usually add one or two new items during the week, so keep an eye here, on announcements. It might be a reading or a diagram or a new discussion. As soon as I set up something new, or change something significantly in Webcourses, I always follow immediately with an announcement here on the Blogspot.

Day 1

I will probably open our Webcourses area for you on Wednesday.

Until then, you can do these things:

1. Read the announcements on Blogspot. Our announcements for fall semester PSC1121-0W62 are at

http://online1121.blogspot.com/


2. Purchase the two required textbooks. I have them listed at the above Blogspot. I suggest buying them online; I have not asked the UCF bookstore to supply your textbooks this semester.


3. Do not buy anything other than the textbook and problem solving manual. WebCT Access codes are not required and we will not use them. ThomsonNOW access codes are not required and we will not use them. There are no clickers required and we will not use any of them.

4. If you already have the textbook, you can start skimming and looking over diagrams and figures in chapters 5, 11 and 20.


On Wednesday, after lunch, there will be a list of things to do for the first few days before we launch into the first main learning module.

Wednesday, I will also have the midterm exam schedule and grading scale up, inside Webcourses.