Science
One Physics
Basic
Information
The Teaching Team
Mark Van
Raamsdonk
office:
Hennings
420 e-mail: mav (at) phas.ubc.ca
James
Charbonneau
office:
364 Irving K. Barber (Oliver Room) e-mail: james (at)
phas.ubc.ca
Teaching Assistant: Victoria Grandy
e-mail: vgrandy (at)
phas.ubc.ca
Books:
Main Text:
Physics
for Scientists and Engineers, by Randall D. Knight
This
covers most of what we will discuss in class, in a relatively
elementary way. Quite a bit of science education research has
gone into developing this text, and the result is a very readable book.
There will be regular reading assignments, since we would like you to
read about the course material before it
is covered in class. You won't need to read the entire book in this
course, since I'll be concentrating on topics that I feel are the most
important rather than trying to give a superficial treatment of every
topic in the book. There are a number of places where we will go into
more detail than is provided in the Knight text, but I will give out
supplementary notes in these cases.
Tutorials:
The tutorial is an important part of the course. Each
time, we'll
prepare a set of relatively simple questions designed to help you
understand some of the basic concepts of the course. You will work on
these in small groups, and at least two of us will be there to answer
questions and help you along. If you find these to be a breeze, there
will also be one or two more challenging questions for you to puzzle
over. You should hand the worksheets in at the end of the session, but
you'll get full credit as long as you've made a reasonable attempt at
it. We will also be incorporating worksheet activities into the
lectures.
Assignments:
There will be regular assignments to give you practice with
problem solving. These will be a combination of online assignments,
which provide instant feedback on your responses, and written
questions, which will include more challenging problems and help you
learn to write up a solution in a clear and logical way. For the online assigments you will need access to Mastering Physics, which
is usually included with your textbook purchase. If you buy the
textbook used, you can still purchase a Mastering Physics access code
separately.
Students
are encouraged to discuss the assignments with each other, but
submitted assignments must be your own work. In other words, you should
not be looking at anyone else's assignment when you are writing up your
solutions, and similarly, you should not share your completed solution
with any of the other students. I have been urged to emphasise that
copying work is a very serious matter with serious consequences (e.g.
suspension).
Grading Scheme:
Tutorials, worksheets, and reading assignments (participation credit): 7%
Clicker participation: 3%
Weekly assignments:
20%
Midterms (two per term): 30%
Exams: 40%
Notes:
Late assignments cannot be accepted since solutions will be posted
online shortly after assignments are due. However, the lowest assignment
score will be dropped. Clicker
participation marks are
awarded solely based on participation (rather than having correct
answers), with full credit given if 80% of questions during the term
are answered. Students may miss one tutorial and still obtain full
credit for the tutorial grade.