UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

Physics 211

Department of Physics

Fall 2008

 

Homework Procedures

 

Collection

            Homework problems are due on the day announced in class WITH NO EXCEPTIONS, EXTENSIONS OR DELAYS except as noted below under "Slacker Coupons".  You will turn in your solutions at the beginning of the period.  Solution sheets will be posted on Blackboard on the same day homework is collected and will be available only to students who have turned in their homework.

 

Collation

            Your name on a piece of your work is a guarantee that it is the best you can do as a professional.  Homework problems must be turned in on standard 8.5" x 11" sheets, white or yellow paper with or without rulings with or without punched holes.  Do not use the backs of old exams, scrap computer paper, pages ripped out of old notebooks or brown paper bags.  You may write on both sides if you wish to save paper, but one-sided sheets look neater.  Use a pencil preferably to a pen because you may have to erase errors.  Problems must be clearly marked and separated from each other.  Pages must be numbered consecutively and stapled at the top left corner.  Loose sheets will not be accepted.

 

Collaboration

            The assigned homework problems should take considerable time to solve, especially as the course progresses.  Do not be surprised or alarmed if you spend one or more hours just on one problem filling numerous sheets of scrap paper with your attempts at a solution.  This is par for the course.  Although it is desirable that you solve all problems by yourselves, this may not always be practical in this course.  Collaboration with your fellow students is allowed and encouraged as a means of correcting possible flaws in your thinking, as an aid to get you started and as a way of keep you going when you become stuck half way through a solution.  Limit your collaboration to general procedures about how to "set up" a problem outlining rather than exactly specifying the solution.  I will be available within and outside office hours to help you with homework questions.  Remember:  The final piece of work that you hand in must be your own, it must bear your personal stamp of thinking processes and you must understand completely (and be able to explain) what you have done, how you did it and why.

 

Grading

Each problem will receive a maximum of 4 points.  Some of the criteria used to award the points are listed below.

 

Points

Criteria

0

The problem is not attempted; the attempted solution or strategy is irrelevant.

1

The attempted solution or strategy is unclear or unjustified; some relevant work is shown; most parts in a multipart problem are missing.

2

The strategy is mostly clear but the solution is carried out about half way; there are serious flaws in mathematical development or reasoning; about half the parts in a multipart problem are missing.

3

The strategy is sound and clear, but there are significant omissions and errors that prevent completion of the solution; one or more parts in a multipart problem are missing.

4

The strategy is sound and clear and the solution is completely correct or mostly correct with perhaps one or two obviously insignificant errors, e.g. silly algebraic mistakes, miscopying an expression from one line to the other, etc.

 

There are 70 homework problems for a maximum homework grade of 280 points.


Slacker Coupons

You will receive three and only three slacker coupons. Each coupon entitles you to turn in your homework late as explained below  

  • Turn in homework by 5:00 pm of day it is due = 1 slacker coupon
  • Turn in homework by 10:00 am the next day it is due = 2 slacker coupons
  • Turn in homework at the beginning of next class meeting time = 3 slacker coupons.

 Attach slacker coupons to late homework to avoid getting a zero.

 

Redeem unused slacker coupons for extra credit at the end of the semester (last day of regular meeting).  To your total homework score, I will add

  • 2% of your total homework score for one unused slacker coupon
  • 5% of your total homework score for two unused slacker coupons
  • 10% of your total homework score for all three unused slacker coupons

 

It is your responsibility to keep your coupons in a safe place and to use them wisely.  Lost coupons will not be replaced.  Slacker coupons are not transferable.