GS104

Grading Principles

• You will not earn points when your activity is impossible to track (weekly reading).

• You will earn some points for making a good effort. These activities (discussion, video questions, and online homework) are designed to be part of the learning process, not assessments. Do your best, but don’t worry about making some mistakes. Unless I see a pattern of hasty or poor work, you will earn full credit.

• You will earn points on some activities only to the extent that your work is complete and correct. The written homework, labs, chapter quizzes, and final exam are designed as both learning opportunities and assessments. So you should be concerned about being as complete and correct as possible on these.

• You must show your work (symbolic formula, numbers in the formula, and an answer with units) when you calculate for the written homework, quizzes, and the final. When you do not calculate, you must explain your answer.

• I cannot guarantee a particular grade as it is ultimately based on performance. But I can honestly say that every student I have had in 23 years of teaching who completed all or nearly all of the work on time earned at least a B.

File Formats

Lab reports and written homework must be submitted as a single pdf only. Please always name your files with your name and the name of the assignment included. Always submit images right side up. Do not ever take photos of your monitor; take screenshots instead. Work that is submitted in an unapproved format may be returned for resubmission or given a grade of zero.

Details for Assigned Work

All of this work is designed to help you learn physics. If you find that anything is "busy work" (of no apparent value to you), then please engage me in a discussion.

• Video and Questions: These videos are by renowned physics professor Paul Hewitt (also the author of the text). You will earn full credit of 2 points per video for watching video lectures and answering the questions. The website will not give you full credit if you miss some questions, but I will override your score. Sometimes the software glitches and doesn’t give you credit at all; if so, then contact me on Canvas to fix it.

• Discussion: Online students will earn up to 2 points per week for substantively participating in the discussion. This may seem like "busy work" at times. But it serves the purposes of keeping you connected to me and other students and getting you in the habit of asking questions when you are stuck.

  1. Make a post in response to the prompt from the instructor.

  2. Reply to another student.

  3. Reply to all questions (if any) from the instructor and other students.

  4. Post or reply regarding the homework.

• Online Homework: You will complete online homework for around 4 points per week. You will normally be allowed to keep trying until you get the right answer. You will earn full credit provided it is complete with reasonable effort.

• Group Work: Hybrid students will practice problems on whiteboards during the lectures, earning around 6 points per week for a reasonable effort and adherence to guidelines. Good group work includes the following:

  1. Make and correct mistakes. You will not be punished for making mistakes, though you will be expected to correct them when challenged by me.

  2. Build consensus (discuss your work), share the workload, and change roles. Use different colored pens to demonstrate this.

  3. Show your work (a symbolic equation, numbers in the equation, and an answer with units) or reasoning even if you think the answer is obvious or you can do the math in your head. Getting correct answers is not sufficient.

  4. Work on one problem (or part of a problem) at a time instead of working in parallel.

  5. Don't erase anything until it has been checked by me and you have photographed your work for future reference.

• Written Homework: Online students will complete, photograph (if not typed), and upload written homework. Use the discussion for help (and to help other students). See file format requirements above.  Total points for homework will vary, but will average around 4 points per week.  I will post solutions to written homework after the due dates.

• Labs: You will complete your lab work, share some of your work on the discussion, and submit your reports on Canvas by Fridays 11:59 pm. Labs will be worth 10 points each. Lab work may be given a grade of zero with the opportunity for resubmission if the work is insufficiently correct. Resubmission of lab work is due three working days from the date graded.

• Chapter Quizzes: Online students will take a quiz on Canvas each week by Sundays at 11:59 pm. In-person students will take a quiz during the lectures on Thursdays the following week. Quizzes are open-book, open-note, and limited to 30 minutes.

• Proctored Comprehensive Final Exam: These are also open-book and open-note. The comprehensive final exam is worth 70 points and is limited to 150 minutes. Hybrid students will take these during regularly scheduled lectures (including finals week). Online students must attend my office hours, use the proctors at Chemeketa’s testing services, or negotiate to have their exam proctored at a location convenient to them. See the proctoring page of the syllabus.

• Extra Projects: You may earn up to 15 points with extra projects. You must submit most extra projects by the end of week 9.  Points awarded are entirely at my discretion and cannot be stated in advance, with the exception of reporting errors. You should generally expect to get fewer points per hour of work compared to other coursework.

1. Report correctable errors (spelling, grammar, physics, etc.) in the websites or documents for this course. Post the error to the discussion board and earn a point. Repeated errors do not earn additional points. Note that I prefer to put commas and periods outside quotation marks when they aren't actually part of the quote (the English rather than the American convention). This is a deliberate choice and not an error.

2. Perform an additional lab of your own design. You must consult with me as you develop ideas.

3. Write a computer program. The program should solve a physics problem you cannot solve analytically, solve a wide variety of problems, or have an instructive animation. You must consult with me as you develop ideas.

4. Attend a Chemeketa planetarium show. Submit a paragraph of notes to me.

5. Watch some videos on physics or astronomy and submit a paragraph of notes. Veritasium has some excellent physics videos, though note that some of them are for different subjects and therefore not eligible for credit. The astronomy videos from Kurzgesagt are good (select ones that interest you from the list). Feel free to suggest other videos.

6. Join the search for gravitational waves by using your idle computer to analyze data from pulsars. You can give Chemeketa some fame and earn yourself some extra credit. Please follow these instructions:

• Go to the BOINC website Einstein@Home. Follow the directions for installing the BOINC software and joining Einstein@Home. Use a descriptive username such as your first name and last initial.

• Install the software on all computers you control. The software can be configured to run as a screensaver so it will only use your computers when they are idle, or you can choose to leave it on all the time in the background. Adjust how often and how much of the CPU is used.

• With laptops, I recommend that you avoid running at 100% of CPU time as they tend to overheat. With any computer, if you choose to leave it on all the time in the background, then it will slow down your computer.

• You will earn points based on the amount of data crunched by your computers by the end of the term. Just think, you can earn points while you sleep! Leave your computers on all the time. It will only cost you a few dollars a month in electricity for each computer. Better yet, enlist computers of your friends and family. There is a bit of a time lag (about a week) between when you crunch the data and get credit for it on the team page.

• Near the end of the term, send me a screen shot showing the amount of "credit" you have earned.

• Please don't ask me for computer technical support. You must figure out how to do this on your own, though you are welcome to discuss this with other students.

Grading Policies

• Late Policy: Late work and make-ups will generally be allowed with prior arrangements. Do not be afraid to ask; the answer is almost always “yes.” When negotiating alternate due dates, you do not need to divulge personal information; focus on what you need instead of why. There are a few exceptions to this policy:

  1. During the first week, more flexibility is called for as you get oriented to the class. Just make sure that you get everything done so that you don’t get dropped from the class.

  2. Technical or last minute personal issues might cause you to turn in your work a few minutes late without negotiations in advance. Don’t panic or abandon the work; you will not be blocked by Canvas. Just turn in the work as soon as you can and I will almost certainly grade it without penalty if you aren’t making it a habit. But be sure to communicate with me if it will be more than a few hours late. And be sure to negotiate in advance whenever possible.

  3. If you post a question on homework or a lab and it is not answered in time for you to complete the work, then you may have a one day extension.

• Incomplete Policy: A grade of incomplete (I) may be negotiated when a student with passing work needs additional time to complete the course. An incomplete will not be granted as a substitute for a failing grade (F).

• No-Show Drop Procedure: You are required to complete nearly all of the work assigned during the first week. Failure to do so may result in a “no-show drop” at the discretion of the instructor.

• Grade Appeals: You have one week from the time anything is graded to appeal its score with a direct message on Canvas. Failure to do so constitutes acceptance of the grade. Please (respectfully) appeal grades that you either don’t understand or think are incorrect. It can be an opportunity for learning and I do make mistakes.

See the next part of the syllabus.