There simply is no other way to learn
Physics. Diligence with the homework will make the exams
easy but ignoring the homework
will make the exams
impossible! You must do the homework --
just to survive. Solutions will be posted on the world wide web
or the internet. Homework will not be turned in and graded; this
requires great maturity and responsibility on your part! However,
the online quizzes are graded and do have required deadlines. Don't
forget them! Homework is vital in Physics!!!! I can not stress that too much. Physics
is like SCUBA diving -- it requires participation and practice and learning
from your own errors. You may be able to understand the Civil War by
listening to lectures. But you can not successfully learn to SCUBA dive
only by listening to lectures -- you have to get
wet! Physics, too, requires that you "get
wet", that you get your hands messy in the mire of homework problems.
There simply is no other way to learn Physics. Most of the exam questionss
will not be strikingly different from the multiple-guess homework questions.
Diligence with the homework will make the exams easy but ignoring the
homework will make the exams impossible! Struggling with and learning
from doing the homework is vital! You must
do the homework -- just to survive! I love to watch old Jacque Cousteau specials on
television. Cousteau makes scuba diving look so easy (after
all, he invented scuba diving!). But I would
(literally!) die if I tried to scuba dive. Learning
how to scuba dive is not the same thing as
watching Cousteau while he scuba dives! Homework is
like that. You have to do the homework yourself! A common and reasonable "rule of thumb" for any three-semester-hour
course is that you must put in six to nine hours
a week reading the material and thinking about and working on and answering
the homework. And that's for a regular fifteen-week semester. This
course is compressed to about half of that.. Taking any course in such
a short time is like drinking from a fire hose! It is probably not
possible to survive (or pass) this course with a smaller
time committment.
For each chapter, about ten homework questions are assigned. These are short answer questions. I like those questions; I hope they are thought-provoking. However, my exams use multiple-choice questions. At the end of the homework solutions that are posted on the internet there are about ten "typical multiple-choice" questions. Those are then repeated with the correct answers. These same questions also appear as WebCT quizzes.
Online Quizzes: These are open book, open answer quizzes! They may be taken or retaken a maximum of five times if you like. For credit, they must be taken before noon on the date of the homework for those chapters as given on the calendar. There is no reason that anyone should not receive 100 points for these Online Quizzes! Just don't wait until the deadline. Take the quizzes early! The only reason for the quizzes is to keep you from getting too far behind. Getting too far behind can be disasterous.
The online quizzes are due before noon of the day they're listed on the Calendar Page. Look at the Calendar Page. The online quizzes are easy. They're just a "nag" to try to keep you from falling behind. Don't worry about them. Do them early. Don'w wait until the day they're due!
You can link to the Online Quizzes from here or from the Course Calendar page.
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