Syllabus, PSC 320 Spring 2015

Please see course website for logistics and timeline.

Text: We will use prepared videos and online reading. You are also welcome to buy a textbook on your own if you like. They are all pretty good, but get out of date rather quickly, as the energy/society landscape changes at a rapid pace.

Grading:

Exams will be graded A, B, C, D, F, based on ability to communicate knowledge to me. Please notice the inclusion of “I can read and understand”, thus you are being graded not on your answer or even your understanding, but on your communication to me.

D: Be present and attentive in class a majority of the time. Exams: correctly identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context a minority of the time that I can read and understand.

C: Be consistently present and attentive in class and related activities. Consistently be prepared for class by watching videos and reading. Produce a project video of “C” quality or better. Exams: Correctly identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context a majority of the time that I can read and understand; set up computations and express important facts from class material a minority of time that I can read and understand.

B: Be consistently present and attentive in class discussions and related activities. Consistently prepare for class by watching videos and reading, and come to class with questions related to material. Produce a project video of “B” quality or better. Exams: Consistently correctly identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context that I can read and understand. Be able to draw from examples in the news and personal experience. Set up computations and express important facts from class material a majority of time that I can read and understand. Make correct use of units the majority of the time that I can read and understand.

A: Be consistently present, attentive, and proactive in class discussions and related activities. Consistently prepare for class by watching videos and reading, and come to class with questions related to material. Produce a project video of “A” quality or better. Exams: Consistently identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context that I can read and understand. Consistently draw from examples in the news and personal experience. Set up and solve a majority of computations and express important facts from class material. Consistently use units correctly that I can read and understand.

F: Does not achieve threshold level for D

Class Work: After you are exposed to the material at home via videos and reading, you will work as a group to solve problems in class. I will often help your group, or address the class as a whole. Your group (of 3 or 4 students) will submit all your classwork (or group quizzes) together. We will staple them together and evaluate only one of them for your review. Class work “grades” may be recorded, but will not count toward your final grade.

Problem Sets: Usually due Tuesday in class. These are graded A,B,C,D,F based on the above criteria. The grade is recorded, but will not be used toward your final grade. Hence, the only incentive to do the homework would be to learn the material for the exams and any other internal motivation such as the good times you’ll have solving problems with your friends, the resilience you’ll gain in the process, and how much you’ll impress people at social gatherings when you can kick around concepts like externalities and the relevance of marginal electricity. The graders will provide only this letter grade and possibly some advice that may help you in the future. I encourage you to hand in your problem set as a group. You can either staple all your papers together (in which case only one will be looked at) or hand in a single problem set as a group. I will not collect late homework as I’ve found this responsibility greatly complicates my life. However, you can turn in late homework for partial credit in the box outside my door.

It would be a very good idea to completely understand the past homework assignments, quizzes, and class tests before each exam

Big Exams: My experience is that test anxiety is an important issue with respect to students’ happiness and ability to learn. Hence will will have a “big exam” every week to practice what we are learning. It will be collected and graded, but not count toward your final grade.

Notes: You are welcome to build your own note sheet for exams provided it has no more than 50 ideas = combined formulas and statements. A drawing is worth 10 ideas. No information will be provided to you in an exam. I recommend that you start a formula sheet now and add formulas as they appear in the videos. Any drawing counts as 5 ideas.

Watching Video: As a learning community, we need people to come prepared to discuss and participate. The videos provide the background to do this. It is my expectation that you will all watch the videos on time and come to class with questions. You will receive credit for answering the questions right or wrong. You will not receive credit for watching videos late. However, if you are not able to watch them on time, you should watch them late to learn the material for the exams. Videos will be posted at least 24 hours before class time.

Energy Project: Groups of 2-4 students will do a research project on something related to energy, society, and the environment that interests you. It may involve reading and research, or building and calculating, or doing an experiment. You will document it with a ~ 5 minute video that you will post on YouTube for the rest of the class to see. project description link is on the main page.

Midterm: The midterm (during activity section Friday) covers all the material up to and including the most recent class. After the midterm, the answers (not the solutions) will be posted, in order for you to improve your work. You can turn in your *perfect* answers to be evaluated if you like.

My Commitment to You: I will do my best to provide you with a planned structure, resources, and activities to learn. I will evaluate you only on criteria that I find foundational (to communicate energy concepts and how they affect our lives) allowing you the freedom to learn in a manner that suits you best. I will do my best to understand your professed needs and help you the best way I know.

My Expectations from You: I expect that you will make decisions consistent with your best interest and your values. I also expect that we will all will work toward the well being of our community. I expect that you will respect my time and make the best use of our time together by coming to class prepared. My intention is to help you learn from the resources around you: textbooks, online media, and each other. I expect you to record your questions while you study. I expect to start class with questions related to the reading and videos. If you have a question, please ask it after you have addressed the related resource (video or reading) and consulted others in your group.

Competition: Your performance will be graded not against each other, but rated against the A-F criteria established above. Therefore if you help others in your class, it will not be detrimental to your grade. My experience has shown that a positive collaborative attitude is likely to raise everyone’s grade.