Office hours this afternoon

Office hours in Starbuc;s, UCF bookstore, center campus, this afternoon, 2:45 - 4:15 PM. Come by to discuss space and time, momentum and energy or Tranformers, Terminators or just have some coffee! :)

SSG offers; check your mail

Offers to prospective leaders of special study groups (SSG) are now out and ready to read over. You know who you are - check your Webcourses course mail. We need your decision ASAP.

HW 11 ready to rock and roll

Go after the new ultra-brain burner in HW 11. It is ready to fry your brain, sweet.

Halfway grades and special study groups

Now is the time when Ashton Dacus and I begin organizing your special study groups. So I have been looking at the halfway grades, nearly halfway through the semester. I am just looking at exam grades right now.

Right now, almost everyone who took both midterms is passing, on the basis of midterm exam scores.

Side note: In your My Grades page, the Midterm exam 2 score has all the SMA points (regular and bonus) in it. However, the first midterm and its SMA bonus are on split lines in My Grades.

OK, let's add up your exams pointage. If the Midterm exam 1 score + Exam 1 SMA bonus + Midterm exam 2 score add up to

1. above 90, you're working on a pace for an A, and you will likely get an offer to lead SSG.
2. above 75, that is on pace for a B
3. above 60, that is on pace for a C
4. above 50, your exam grades are on pace to pass the course.

Plus: good HW and CPS tend to increase your grade, usually. And add in any bonus points on top of that, which will inch your grade up a teeny bit.

If you have not taken one of the first two exams, don't worry right now -- just go by your one exam score instead of two.

Partial credit in your future

I majorly like the partial credit possibilities here, with SMA mode, and I hope you realize the advantage it holds for you as a student taking the examinations.

Partial credit is a feature in long hand-written exams in upper level physics courses, which have to be graded by hand by professor and TAs. It is very laborious to grade but the results are important to assessing a student's understanding. I can now make these distinctions with you guys in GEP physical science, using SMA and analyzing the results.

So your class just went into overdrive.

Scores are UP for midterm 2, including all SMA (regular and bonus)

OK, all the exam points are graded and IN. Look at your My Grades page for the breakdown: total score, SMA scores

1. "Midterm exam 2" = all points together, scantron + SMA regular + SMA bonus
2. "....subscore - Midterm exam 2 SMA regular (2)" = points from questions 49 and 50.
3. Down the page a bit, "Exam 2 SMA bonus (4)" = score on questions 51 and 52, including partial credit.
4. "MOK on 52?" is a comment line to indicate whether you earned partial credit on question 52.

ABOUT PARTIAL CREDIT:
Questions 51 and 52 were linked together, so that the result from 51 was required for 52. This being the case, it was possible to halfway mess up: wrong answer from 51 applied correctly in 52. I can analyze your data to detect this.

• When I saw that you attempted the correct method on 52 with incorrect numbers from 51, I wrote down the symbol MOK, meaning "Method OK." This is in the "MOK on 52?" line of your My Grades page.
• If you got both questions right, I inserted"All OK", and
• if you did not answer or answered both incorrectly, I inserted the word "no."

To give partial credit, I needed at least one point to award, which meant I had to make questions 51 and 52 worth 2 points each, partial credit 1 point possible on 52. So you received either 4 points for "All OK," or 1 point for "MOK" on 52, or zero bonus points. It was a tough pair of questions.

I have scores

I have your exam 2 scores from test scoring. I have to put them together now with your SMA pointage, regular and bonus. Still some work, but maybe sometime tomorrow you will see exam scores. Hang in there.

Amazing

I just figured out that I can analyze your SMA input (inside Excel spreadsheet) for partial credit. E.g., if you make an error on #51 but then use that answer with the correct method in #52, I can give partial credit on #52.

Incredibly sweet. You cannot underestimate how exciting that is for me. It means that, as we build up the SMA part of the midterms, we can extract partial credit, maybe even bonus points, from the input. It is like going from a tapping a spoon on a bottle to listening to a symphony orchestra.

Excellent!

Exam 2 in the pipeline

Your exam scantrons are in the pipeline, and when they get done and returned to me, I have no way of knowing.

So do NOT send me course mail messages about when the test scores will be in.

Do not send me AIM or call me on the phone about test scores.

Do not get Ashton, Meg or Gaby to ask me about exam scores.

Failure to comply will earn you a five yard penalty, illegal procedure.

Just wait, and keep your eyes here. 30 seconds after I upload grades into Webcourses, I will post an announcement here. So this Blogspot is the place to seek your answer.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Charlie Quebec

In case you are looking for me tonight, you will not reach me...I will be off the air, working on your midterm for tomorrow morning.

Expect the unexpected.

In the meantime, make sure to pepper Ashton Dacus, Meg Averil and Gaby with questions in Webcourses! They'll be my deputies tonight!

New blurb file about work and kinetic energy

I just created a new lecture file, with some extra emphasis on the spatial relationship between force and displacement vector. It amplifies and reinforces some of the ideas we discussed in lecture on Tuesday. Take a look in the Lecture Files.

Office hours today

I will have office hours to study today, 8:00-9:45 AM and 2:45 - 4:15 PM, in Starbuck's in the UCF Bookstore in center campus.

HW 10 is UP

OK, last homework before the midterm is now UP. Sorry, it is a bit later than usual. It is HW 10, with a few brain burners in there on kinetic energy and work.

Gaby guides and CPS points will be up tomorrow morning. Good night.

Voting

Dont forget to vote today and tomorrow in campus issues like Green Campaign etc. The destiny of the free world does not depend upon it, but vote anyway. :)

Enigma machines

Ashton and I have made up some study devices named Enigma machines. Right now, we have two ready for you:

1. Strength of Gravitational Force
2. Trouble in Outer Space

They let you work step-by-step through some of the calculations in chapters 5 and 6. Look for them in Lecture Files.

Suggest a question for midterm 2

You can suggest a question for the second midterm, same method as before -- in Discussions. If it is good enough and we use it on the exam, then you get 1 bonus point.... and anyone who has studied it will likely grab that question on the test!

 

Topic areas for the exam

1. circular motion (chapter 4)
2. chapter 5
3. chapter 6 or
4. the topics of chapter 7 that we cover on 2/19

Homework 9 is ready

Go ahead to HW 9 in Webcourses. It is due on Tuesday morning.

Office hours now in progress, Starbuck's, UCF bookstore, until 4:15 PM.

Subtotals

I just set up subtotals for your HW scores and both kinds of CPS score. These rows are at the top of the HW/CPS subsection of your My Grades page. Every week, I will upload new CPS scores from lecture, and Webcourses will generate HW scores. I will update HW and CPS subtotals each week.

With the subtotals, you can keep an eye on your grade's "dynamical" state and see how it evolves over time.

---

SIDE NOTE:
Some of you might see a number in parentheses. In our grade book, if at least one row referenced in the formula for the calculated subtotal has a value, a running total appears.

For example: with a formula that calculates the sum of the HW88 and HW202 scores, if there is a value in the HW88 row, e.g., 12, but not the HW202 row, the HW88 value appears as a running total, (12).

Running totals are italicized and appear in parenthesis.

After there is a value in the HW202 row, e.g., 3, the formula is completed and appears in plain text like other grade book entries, a plain old 15.

HW 8 is ready, but make sure to read...

Homework assignment #8 is now ready to go, due Thursday morning. Before hitting the HW, make sure to read the Halley and Newton biographical blurbs in the Lecture Files. The last exercise is a brain-burner, meltdown time. Excellent.

HW 7 ready to go: study in chapter 5 required.

Homework assignment #7 is now ready for you inside Webcourses. It is due next Tuesday, as usual.

Unlike the usual thing, however, you have to read some pages in chapter 5, on tides, before tackling the HW. I.e., it is a study homework.

Caught nappin'

Take a look at the Lecture Files in Webcourses. There is a file for exercise 10, p. 73, which we were working on at the end of lecture. I made an error in the orbital speed computation, which was spotted by Morris and Katherine. The new lecture file for exercise 10 has the correct computation, along with some comments on the law of universal gravitation in chapter 5.

Gracias, Katherine and Morris!! I was nappin'!!

Thursday's lecture = GO

We will have regular lecture on Thursday morning, back to the normal schedule.

Thursday's lecture will be on gravitation, so do some reading and skimming in chapter 5, if you have 30 min. Especially look at the diagrams and illustrations. We will review and elaborate the blurb on p. 81, "Working it out|Gravity" plus some of the exercises on circular motion and orbits from chapter 4, p. 73:

1. exercise 8, generic circular motion;
2. exercise 9, Earth-Sun orbital system;
3. exercise 10, Earth-Moon orbital system.

You can eyeball those tonight and maybe bug Ashton and Meg with questions in Discussions. :)

See you Thursday morning, GO FOR LAUNCH!

Accurate diagram of Earth-Moon system

No HW for Thursday

Sorry. I have been so busy getting healthy that I have not gotten to an assignment for you for tomorrow (Thursday) as I had expected to do. I know that it is SO disappointing to not have any HW again, but you will just have to try to keep your composure. :)

See you in lecture, on Thursday. We will have exam printouts to hand back.

Lecture cancelled/medical

Due to a medical emergency I must cancel lecture for today, Tuesday! Big disaster.

I will set up a special circular-motion study-reading homework assignment for bonus points, to replace some lecture work. Look for that this afternoon.

See you for more some good gravitational acceleration concepts on Thursday, normal time. That will be wrap up of chapter 4 and digging deep in chapter 5, universal gravitation.

Hopefully the doctor will not have to amputate at the neck. :)