UT Dallas Syllabus For Sci5v06.0t1.08u Taught by (rch072000)

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Syllabus

SCI 5v06
Active Physics and Research
Summer 2008
Instructor: Professor Robert C. Hilborn
Email: rhilborn@utdallas.edu
Phone: 972-883-4726

Course Goals and Objectives:


From this course you should learn:
¾ Many of the basic principles of physics.
¾ How to apply those principles to scientific problem solving.
¾ How to devise teaching activities that keep students engaged in learning physics.
¾ How to design learning objectives, activities, and assessments that form a coherent whole for a
student “research project” involving physics.

Textbooks
Active Physics, Chapters 1, 5, and 7, draft revised version (Herff-Jones) (to be provided by the
instructor).
Understanding by Design, 2nd Ed. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Design, Alexandria, VA 2005).

Course Structure
Since this is an online, “asynchronous” course, you will be responsible for keeping up with reading,
assignments, discussions, and quizzes as outlined below.

There will be a brief (15 minute or so) quiz each week to provide feedback to the instructor and to set the
pace for the course. Quizzes will be posted on Fridays and must be completed by the following Monday.
You should do the quiz on your own, but you can make use of books, web sites, etc. if needed.

You are expected to participate in the online discussions, to prepare and post a report on your final
project, and to provide professional peer review of other students’ reports. A tentative schedule can be
found at the end of this syllabus.

Time Expectations
Since we are completing a 3-credit-hour graduate course in eight weeks, the time expectations per week
are somewhat higher than for a typical fall or spring semester course. I estimate that you will need to
spend about 3 hours a week reading the text material and doing the activities, about one hour working on
the assignments and taking quizzes, and one hour on other miscellaneous course activities (finding
materials on the web, participating in course discussions, planning with team members, and so forth).
Towards the end of the course, you will shift your time to working on the final project.

If an emergency arises and you cannot finish an assignment or quiz on time, please notify the instructor as
soon as possible. We will then work out a schedule for finishing whatever activities you missed.

Lab Notebook
You should obtain an inexpensive bound (but not spiral bound) “lab notebook” in which you will keep
records of your work (what was read when, when assignments were finished and quizzes taken), web
resources that you find, questions you have about the material, plans for your final project and so on. The
“lab notebook” should have a daily record of your work in the course. I suggest using a “composition
book” (typically 80-100 pages), which can be purchased in office supply stores, drug stores, etc. for a few
dollars.

Teams
You will be working in teams of two (assuming we have an even number of students). Each team will be
responsible for finding (1) additional web materials (animations, essays, videos, etc.), (2) inexpensive
replacement “equipment” for the student activities, (3) a 5E analysis, and (4) TEKS alignment for two of
the activities in each chapter. Specific team assignments will be made during the first week of the course.

Submissions
Please use either Microsoft WORD or produce a pdf file readable by Adobe Acrobat. If you are using
WORD 2007, please save your files in a format compatible with WORD 2003 (i.e. a “.doc” file rather
than a “.docx” file) so that others (including the instructor!) with earlier versions of WORD can read the
files.

Weekly Online Discussions


We will have on-going, on-line discussions about the class material and related topics. Each week,
beginning in the second week of the course, one of you will be assigned to moderate the discussion. The
moderator is responsible for stimulating discussion by asking questions or making statements if the
discussion does not spontaneously get going. The moderator is also responsible for summarizing the
discussion at various points and posing questions as appropriate. (For example, you might write “We
seemed to have agreed that activity 7 provides a nice demonstration of momentum if we remind the
students to take both mass and velocity into account. What might we do with students who “still don’t get
it”? Is there a good follow-on activity or simulation that would help those students?”)

Discussion Grading Rubric


For participants (weekly participation): 2 points for contributing at least two helpful remarks or
questions with appropriate follow up. 1 point for some contribution. 0 for no participation.
For discussion leaders: 4 points for keeping a lively and informative discussion going for the
week. 3 points for doing reasonably well in keeping a lively and informative discussion going for most,
but not all of the week. 2 points if the discussion was just acceptable. 1 point if little leadership was
provided. 0 for no leadership.

Your discussion grades (along with other course grades) will be posted on the course’s
BlackBoard Gradebook in a timely manner. Only you and the instructor can see your grades.

Final Project
For your final project, which will take the place of a final exam, each team will develop, try out amongst
themselves, and then report on a short “research project” that students taking Active Physics could carry
out in one or two class periods. (If you prefer, you may work on the final project alone.) Because of the
limited time available for students to do the project, the scope of the project will need to be quite
restrained and the amount of data analysis will need to be small. The project should focus on ideas
covered in the three chapters of Active Physics examined in this course. The report will present the
lesson plan for the research project along with your rationale for its design.

Peer Review of Final Project Reports


You are expected to provide brief peer review, using a rubric to be provided, of the final reports of the
other students in the class.

Feedback Surveys
We will have two formal surveys to provide feedback to the instructor about the course. The first will be
available early in the third week of the course to allow for adjustments to the course schedule, procedures,
and so forth. The last will be done during the last week of the course and will constitute the formal
teaching evaluation of the course. You will receive 5 points toward your final grade when you complete
the final survey.

Grades
We will use the following weightings in determining your grades:

Six Quizzes 15 points


Discussion Participation 10 points
Discussion Leadership 5 points
Seven Assignments 30 points
Final Project Report 25 points
Peer Review of Final Reports 10 points
Course Survey (last week) 5 points
Total 100 points

Grading will not be done on a “curve.” Course grades will be assigned according to the following point
scale:
96-100 A+
92-95 A
88-91 A-
83-87 B+
79-82 B
75-78 B-
70-74 C+
66-69 C
62-65 C-
57-61 D+
53-56 D
50-52 D-
less than 50 points F
SCI 5v06 Summer 2008
Tentative Class Schedule

Week Date Reading Topics, quizzes and assignments

1 June 9 Ch. 1, Understanding by Design Introduction, motion


Ch. 1, Physics in Action
June 13 Assignment 1 due
June 13 Quiz 1
2 June 16 Ch. 1 Physics in Action

June 18 Assignment 2 due


June 20 Quiz 2
3 June 23 Ch. 5 Let Us Entertain You Sound and light
June 25 Assignment 3 due
June 27 Quiz 3
4 June 30 Ch. 5 Let Us Entertain You Sound and light
July 2 Assignment 4 due
July 3 Quiz 4
5 July 7 Ch. 7 Electricity for Everyone Electricity
July 9 Assignment 5 due
July 11 Quiz 5
6 July 14 Ch. 7 Electricity for Everyone Electricity
July 16 Assignment 6 (Project Proposal) due
July 18 Quiz 6
7 July 21
July 23 Assignment 7 due
8 July 30 Final Project Report Due
August 4 Peer Review Reports Due
August 6 Course Evaluations Due

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