** Updated 8/14/2020 **
Physics 201 | Summer 2020 Differences |
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Departmental Announcement: "The abrupt need to switch to remote delivery will create some uncertainty. Normally, a syllabus states the rules of the course explicitly, but less so this term. We may need to adapt course delivery methods and our approach to assessing your work. We want to get it right, and so we ask for your understanding if some procedures, including the delivery of midterms, need to be modified during the term."
Several sections of our course will have different forms this Summer 2020 term. Here they are and what they will now look like:
Experiencing Obstacles?
If you are experiencing obstacles to your engagement in this course, please let your TA, your instructor, or the Office of Student Life know! The Office of Student Life can direct you to the appropriate help if you do not have a computer, reliable access to the internet, or are experiencing life challenges such as food insecurity or financial challenges. The instructors each care about every student in our class, and will work to remove any obstacle to your learning process!
Lectures
Lectures will still function largely the same! Our lectures will still be flipped with questions coming from our usual templates (which can be found on the course calendar). We will still deliver questions to you via Learning Catalytics (Purchase here if you do not have a subscription already.).
Lectures will be delivered via Zoom this term. You can find a link to the lectures on the boxsand course calendar as well as the course Canvas. To keep things secure, you will need a password to enter the Zoom meeting. This password can be found on the course Canvas, as well as an email that will be sent to you at the beginning of the term. Please read through the Zoom hints listed below!
Async | If you are not able to make it to a live-lecture, there will be an asynchronous (Async) option to earn lecture "attendance". These will be assignments available on Canvas for you to complete. You either do the live session OR the Async, but not both.
We will give credit for any answer, correct or not, given in Learning Catalytics during a live-lecture session. However, for Async assignments, credit will only be given for correct answers. Our research shows that students who participate in live-lectures earn almost a full letter grade higher in this course. We strongly encourage you to participate in the live-lectures where we will be working on problem solving.
Lab
Our labs will experience one of the larger shifts from what you would experience on campus.
You will complete your lab at home, and are encouraged to work in groups with one another. Most labs will feature a central simulation for you to explore, take data, and analyze that data.
You will complete your lab reports via Gradescope
TAs will be available to help you complete your lab. The lab help session schedule can be found on the Contacts page You are welcome to attend any section you wish! The instructors suggest forming a group to work through each lab with. With your group, attend a lab section and work through the lab together. This will likely let you work faster, learn more, and have a lot of fun! If you are looking for a lab group, check with your Recitation Pod, or check on Slack for others who would also like to form a group!
Recitation
Recitation will be functionally similar to on campus recitation sections, except it will occur online via the use of Zoom. You must attend the recitation section for which you are registered. An essential purpose of recitation is small group work with a higher instructor to student ratio.
You can locate your recitation section Zoom sessions on Canvas.
Exams
There will be two quizzes and a final exam this term. The two quizzes will be during the first hour of class on the Monday of each week. Don't worry, there will not be a quiz on the first day of class! All quizzes and exams will be cumulative. Physics, by nature, builds on previously learned concepts and tools. Expect that each quiz will rely heavily on what you learned in previous weeks.
Quiz and exam PDFs will be made available via Canvas when they start. You will complete work on your own paper, or electronic tablet with a pen, or you may print the quiz/exam. You will then take a picture or scan of your work and submit this to Gradescope.com under the appropriate assignment. You should complete your work, document your work, and submit it within the time constraint. Quizzes and exams will be designed with the time required to document and upload in mind. Consult previous courses exams for test format (you can find these on Boxsand).
See the course calendar for the exam schedule.
See the Grades section below for quiz and exam weighting
Reflective Writing
During the summer, we will not be doing the reflective writing assignments that you see in the "traditional" course syllabus
Grades
Here is the grade breakdown for this term. Note exams are structured differently from the normal on campus course.
| Activity | % Grade |
| *Combined Pre/post-lecture homework | 5 |
| *Lecture (Learning Catalytics) | 5 |
| **Challenge homework | 10 |
| **Lab | 10 |
| ***Recitation | 10 |
| Quizzes 1 & 2 | 15 each |
| Final exam | 30 |
* Full credit is given for over 85% correctness of pre, post, and lecture questions. In-class lecture questions are given full credit regardless of correctness. Late assignments on Canvas will lose 15% per day until it reaches a cap of no more than 50% full credit lost. This means you always have an incentive to do work late, even many many days after the due date.
** Late assignments on Gradescope will be graded normally until the solutions are released (usually the next day), at which point they will receive no more than 50% of full credit.
You must also complete all labs to passing quality to receive a grade in this course. Late exams can still satisfy this requirement.
*** You may miss one recitation without penalty.
Course grade calculation will be done in tandem with a separate calculation that only includes the exams - you will receive the higher of the two grades. This is to accommodate students who have already mastered, or feel they can master, the material without formal practice and assessment. I do not suggest anyone attempt this approach as I have statistics on how poorly it typically works out.
Canvas will not display your correct course grade. It will inform you correctly of individual assignment grades. Canvas is notoriously bad at calculating grades. However, it does give a very rough estimate for your course grade that might help you get a sense of how you are doing.
Slack is a messaging application which you can install on your phone and/or computer. Much of the support for this course will be centered around this application. You can access Slack via a web interface, or you can download a locally run version on your computer and/or phone. We suggest a local version. Click on the link above to install Slack.
Slack is the place that you should go when you are looking for help, or when you would like to meet up with classmates to discuss a problem or assignment. You can start a Zoom session straight from a Slack conversation by typing "/Zoom". LAHHHs, the Wormhole, and instructor office hours will all start in Slack. There are existing channels set up, but you can also create your own channels for study groups. Public channels are still only available to OSU students and faculty. If you're concerned about your privacy, see the privacy section below. The public channels you need to know are:
- #ph203_summer2020 | Public channel for general discussion related to PH201
Face to face contact in this course will all be done via Zoom to enable social distancing. Lectures, recitations, lab help sessions, LAHHH, the Wormhole, study groups, etc will all use Zoom. You can run Zoom through a web interface, or you can install a local version to run on your computer. Click on the link above to access or install Zoom.
The Ecampus version of this course has been using Zoom to great effect for the last two terms. Over this time, we have discovered a few hints for effective communication and engagement in this course. Here are the most important of those hints:
- Connect to Zoom with a device that has a microphone. This can be your computer or even a phone!
- We will break you into smaller "breakout" sessions during live lectures. There you will tackle the problem at hand with 4 or 5 other students.
- Many students are initially reluctant to interact either because they are unfamiliar with their breakout room partners, or this new Zoom environment. Go ahead and try things! There is no penalty for being wrong or making mistakes! This course is designed around interaction between students, and Zoom is actually quite good at enabling this.
- Our favorite method of interaction between students in breakout sessions is for one student to share their screen (with the class template on it!), then have every group member work together to "annotate" the template to solve the problem.
- In light of the previous hint, download the template before class!
- You can set these shared screens with annotations to save automatically when the breakout session ends. They can be shared with the entire group at the end of the lecture period! Viola, notes!
- We will have Zoom and Learning Catalytics running at the same time. It is easiest to manage this if you have them running on separate devices (i.e. Zoom on your computer, LC on your phone). This is not always possible, but thankfully it is also quite manageable on one device.
There are many options for Zoom sessions that can be accessed in the settings menu here. We suggest you read through these options and choose those which suit how you would like to engage in the class.
LAHHH
Learning Assistant Homework Help Hours (LAHHH) will be from TBD to TBD. As much of the rest of the class does, this will be happening on Slack/Zoom. The LAHHH sessions will start on the course Slack space, #ph203_summer2020. This is a great place to meet friends to study. It is also a great place to get help or advice from former students who succeeded in this course previously! Plus it's fun!
During PH203, the wormhole will not be active, but our TAs will be present on the course Slack channel to provide help. Look for hours to be posted shortly!
Privacy
If you wish to remain anonymous, you are encouraged to change your name for Zoom sessions and on Slack.
Slack: you can edit your display name through the "Edit Profile" option. To locate this, open the options drop down menu by clicking on "OSU Physics ∨" in the upper left of your Slack app, then select "Profile & account".
Zoom: in a Zoom session you can edit your name by clicking on your name, then selecting "rename".
Zoom Recording: We may record and make available the Zoom lecture (only) sessions. While in the main room if you speak or share video that will show up in the recording. Feel free to type your questions in the chat. While in the breakout rooms with other students nothing is recorded so you are strongly encouraged to talk, share screens, and even engage with video.
Professional Etiquette: While you can use an alias in Slack and Zoom, administrators still know who you are. Negative behavior will not be tolerated and will be considered academic misconduct. Slack does not allow editing or deleting posts to help enforce this policy. Please be kind to everyone while on our system always.