Final course grades

The course grades have now been posted on eLearning. I have also included the average grades for Quest homework, physicsplace submissions, and classwork (labs and other activities). In computing your homework average, I either just used Quest or I used the average of Quest and physicsplace if your physicsplace score was higher than Quest. In computing the classwork grade I dropped the three lowest grades. So you were not penalized if you missed a day and a half. The numerical class total grade was computed by weighting your exams, homework, and classwork as described in the syllabus. There was almost no curving of the final grades since the exams were substantially curved and the classwork scores were very high. The overall class grades were quite high - higher than I give in my other courses. So, there was no reason for anyone to do badly in the course unless they simply didn't come to class and/or do the homework.

Exam 3 results

The raw average for exam 3 was 16.5/29. I scaled the grades similar to exam 2 to make the average 75 and the high 100. Here is the distribution.

Exam 2 results

The exam 2 grades have been posted on eLearning. These include both the raw score - number correct out of 29 - and the final scaled grade. Before scaling the average was 60.5% and the highest was 93.1%. I scaled linearly to bring the average to 75% and the highest to 100%. The grades were not as good as on the first exam, although there was less math involved.

Homework

Ok, let's hope that by now everyone has access to the physicsplace resources. So, here is the assignment for the next two weeks.

Do all assigned Quest problems. There are specific due dates for these.

On physicsplace.com do the Chapter Quizzes and the Media Quizzes for each chapter we cover (listed in the schedule). You can submit repeatedly until you get all answers correct. Only your highest submitted grade will be used. There is no specific deadline for physicsplace submissions, but do so before the Friday exam.

If you don't submit Chapter Quizzes and Media Quizzes, then your homework grade (15 pts out of 90) will be based only on Quest problems. If you submit Chapter Quizzes and Media Quizzes in addition to Quest, then your homework grade will be the average of Quest and Chapter Quizzes/Media Quizzes (total still 15 pts our of 90).

I hope this doesn't sound too complicated. If you didn't buy access to physicsplace.com, then you can just submit Quest problems. If you get them all correct, then you get the maximum homework points (15/90). But if you submit the Chapter Quizzes and Media Quizzes in addition to Quest, then you could easily bring up your total homework score if you were not doing great on Quest. For example, if your Quest homework score was 60% and you got all the Chapter Quizzes and Media Quizzes correct (which you can do by repeatedly submitting them), then your homework average would be raised to 80% (still maximum of 15/90).

In addition, I would hope that doing the Chapter Quizzes and Media Quizzes would help you on the Friday exams.

Exam 1 results

Exam 1 has been graded and the grades are posted on mybama on eLearning. The average raw score was 74% and the highest raw score was 96%. I decided to curve the grades by adding 4% to each score so that the highest was 100%, making the average 78%.

Overall, the scores were pretty good. Keep in mind that the exams represent 1/2 of the total grade and that the other half comes from in-class group work and homework. I expect the group work average to be quite high, and if you seek help your homework score should not be too bad. This means that everyone can be on track to make a grade of C or better in the course. But of course you need to do all the in-class work and as well as you can on the homework.

There are still 2 exams ahead which will give you a chance to improve your grade (if you were on the low side of this exam) or reduce your grade (if you were on the high side of this exam). If everyone works hard, the overall class grades should turn out OK. So, I am generally pleased with how you have done so far, in spite of the problems with Pearson access codes. Keep it up.

Quest

None of you have been able to find our course on Quest after you have requested enrollment and I have accepted your enrollment. The problem was that Quest doesn't allow a Summer course to start at this time (even though it allowed me to create it and enroll you).

So, I have created another PH115 course for Spring 2010. (This is still an interim course. It is just that Quest wants us to call this a spring course.) The course ID for this course is 20406b (NOT 30406).

So, each of you will need to request enrollment in course number 20406b. Then you will see the first assignment. Because of this delay, the problems will be due tomorrow night (Tues) at 10 pm.

Sorry, about all this. Hopefully, this solves the problem.

About PH115

PH115 is a conceptual physics course. The first week covers mechanics, the second week waves, sound and light, and the third week electricity and magnetism. This is a lot to cover in 3 weeks.; however, the course should not be too difficult if you do what is asked. The amount of mathematics used is minimal.

I won't do much lecturing. There will be various group activities and labs, some demostrations, and some 'clicker' questions. Homework will be due 3 or 4 times a week. There are two types of homework: 1) Problems using the U Texas online homework system referred to as 'Quest', and 2) Chapter Quizzes and Media Quizzes using the textbook online site referred to as PhysicsPlace. These things are described in the syllabus.

We will spend some time the first day showing how to enroll in Quest and PhysicsPlace.

There will be no final exam. Instead, there will be an hour exam each Friday on the material covered that week.

Feel free to ask questions of me or the TAs (Aparagita and Eric). Feel free also to see me after class or email me.