St. Mary’s High School – 2002/2003
Teacher: Mr. Jared Lash
Text – Conceptual Physics - The High
School Program by Paul Hewitt
School Phone # 957-3340 Ext. 236
Website – smphysics.tripod.com (no
www.)
E-mail: smphysics@yahoo.com
Conceptual Physics is a class that
whose lessons can stay with you long after you have completed the course. This a sciences course for people who don’t
consider themselves “science people.”
But if you are interested in learning about the most basic and
encompassing of all the sciences or just want to broaden your horizons this
class should prove to be interesting and valuable to your understanding of the
world around you.
Physics is the study of nature and
includes the topics such as how and why things move, energy, phases of matter,
heat, sound, electricity and light. It
is my hope that after this class you will look around you and have an
understanding of the rules that govern everything that you see. If you finish this course and have a new
perspective about what you say and do everyday then I (and I hope you) will
consider this a valuable class.
In
Conceptual Physics I tend to be very relaxed and loose. I encourage questions and discussion and allow
students to feel like they are free to vocalize their point of view. My stance is that I will treat you as adults
UNLESS you give me a reason not to.
I do expect promptness and that you be
seated in your seats BEFORE the bell rings.
We generally have a lot to cover and need to start on time. One of my biggest pet peeves is when
students are in my class and are working on materials for another course. I understand that you may have a test in
another class that day but if you are in my class I expect you to be giving me
your full attention. Just as you should
be in your desks when class begins, you should be in your desk when class
ends. DO NOT line up at the door in the
waning moments of class.
As you now know, in this course you
will be sitting at lab tables instead of traditional desks. I hope that this is not an inconvenience for
you. You will be doing a lot of
discussion, practice work and labs with the people at your tables so it is to
your advantage to make sure that you have their phone numbers if you need
help. At first the seating will be
random but I may or may not move you around during the year. Also I may move students during testing.
1. Scoring
Your
quarter grade will be calculated as follows:
25%
Homework/Classwork
24%
Labs
20%
Quizzes
30%
Exams
1%
Recycling
Your
semester grade will be calculated as follows:
38% First quarter Grade (1st
or 3rd)
38% Second quarter Grade (2nd
or 4th)
24% Final Exam
2.
Homework
This
course emphasizes conceptual understanding before working with equations and
formulas. Reading is important, as the
textbook will be your main resource. I
will give you assignments from the textbook, which are review questions and
thought exercises. Also, you will have
a Concept Development Practice book which we will use quite a bit. None of these assignments should take you
more than 10-15 minutes.
After
we cover the basics of a chapter and take the chapter quiz, I will get more
involved with the equations and perhaps introduce more equations. You will then
get homework problems from me to practice with them. Each of these assignments will be graded out of 10 points. Zero points will be given for copied
work. Although the math level will be
low on quizzes, you need to understand how to solve more complicated problems
because they WILL appear on the Exams.
3.
Labs
The
best way to learn physics is by doing physics.
Homework will help you understand concepts but in the labs you will see
physics principals at work. This is a
hands-on course so we will be using meter sticks, stopwatches etc. Thus proper measuring and careful data
collection will be important. Also, I
consider anything we do in labs to be fair game for an exam so it is important
that you understand what you do.
I
will give you a copy of each lab several days prior to the experiment day. You will be expected to pre-lab and be ready
to perform the labs. On experiment days
I will briefly check your pre-labs to ensure that you are prepared. Labs will be graded holistically on a ten
point scale. For more info check the
Lab Guidelines Handout.
4.
Quizzes
The quizzes will be more like chapter
tests. They will not take the whole
period and will involve a mix of true/false, multiple choice, short answer and
problem solving. The Conceptual Physics
book contains 40 chapters. My goal is
to cover 30 of these. However, I will
be happy if we get through 25 or more.
It will depend on our pacing.
There are about 37 weeks of school.
So you can see that we will be covering a little less than a chapter a
week.
After
my lectures, Homework from the text, Concept Development worksheets and any
Labs, we will have the chapter quiz.
Afterwards we will get a little deeper into problem solving as stated
above, and then we will begin a new chapter.
This means that we will have between six to eight chapter quizzes per
quarter.
5.
Exams
In
this class there will be two or three exams per chapter depending on the
quarter. Chapters will be grouped together when the material is cohesive. For instance Chapters 4,5 and 6 on Newton’s
Three Laws will be the subject of the second exam.
The
exams will have a mix of conceptual and calculation questions. The format of exams will be mix of multiple
choice, fill in the blanks, short answer and calculation questions. The biggest difference between chapter
quizzes and exams is that exams will test your problem solving to a much
greater extent. If you are having any
problems with the calculation problems be sure to come in for help before the
exams.
On exams I will be looking for proper
reasoning/logic and will give partial credit for people who do some work in the
right direction. That’s why it is
always a good idea to show your work.
Grading on Exams will be based on the breakdown of scores by both
sections. I curve the grades based on
the median and the standard deviation and NOT on just the highest score. I’ll go over this more in class.
6.
Recycling
Once
each semester you will be required to bring in 50 crushed aluminum cans or a
receipt from a recycling center verifying that you have recycled cans. This is an effort to promote recycling and
also a way for the science department to make some money for more equipment. If you want extra credit you may bring more
cans above the minimum fifty. You will
get one-half percent extra credit for every extra 50 cans up to 2 percent. This would be a total of 250 cans.
7. Extra Credit
There
isn’t any so don’t ask. If your grade
is in trouble it means you aren’t learning the material. Keep this in mind – I DON’T round
grades. An 89.9 is a B. For people on the bubble (89 percent, 79
percent etc) I will consider bumping you up depending on your work habits and
contributions during class.
One of the most important resources
for this course will be the website.
The website will contain copies of all the handouts given out in class,
relevant info, interesting facts, an periodically updated calendar and interesting
and relevant links. Also I will try to
post current grades for this class every Monday. Some things will only be available online under web
resources. These will include the
calendar with HW assignments, my lecture notes (if you miss class or want to
print them out for easier note taking or just want to know what’s coming up)
and will include quiz and exam answers and practice problems for both finals.
If
you want to get in touch with me feel free to e-mail me at the address listed
above. There is also an Email Me link
on the website which also works. Also,
what you may want to consider doing is downloading either the yahoo messenger
so that you can talk with me immediately.
I decided that I would try to be online every night between 9 and 10 pm
if I am home and with Yahoo Messenger
you can get an immediate response from me. If you are interested but don’t know how to get or use these
programs check my website, I will soon
have a link for people to download the application.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something but
we’ll figure it all out.
I hope you enjoy
Conceptual Physics.