Changes

1. I will not allow the use of electronic devices in the classroom, with the exception of iClickers. In particular, cellphones and laptops must be off and put away. Only the LNEC notetaker and students with documented disabilities may use a laptop.

2. If you wish to communicate with me, please do so in person. I will not read or respond to student emails. In an emergency, you may contact the physics department office electronically.

3. When calculating iClicker scores for the entire semester, I will drop the 5 lowest daily scores to allow for occasional iClicker problems (e.g., an iClicker left at home or one with dead batteries). I do, however, have several loaner iClickers that you can borrow before class. Those 5 dropped days are the only accommodation I make with respect to the iClickers. If you miss lots of classes, you will have to accept a lower iClicker average.

4. I will deduct 1/3 point for each wrong answer on the multiple-choice exams, thereby expanding the effective range of exams scores from 25–100% to 0–100%.

5. When calculating semester grades, I will reduce the weighting of a student's problem set scores by 1% for every 1% that student's exam average differs from the class's exam average.

Explanation for these changes

Changes 1, 2, and 3:

I am implementing these changes primarily to improve the academic culture of the course. The modern notion that students can multitask in class (e.g., respond to email, check facebook, text, twitter, and read sports scores) and still learn physics is simply wrong, as evidenced by a disturbing drop in student performance in How Things Work following the introduction of wireless internet in the lecture hall. Cellphones and laptops have become portable entertainment centers and students are addicted to that entertainment. Since I can't possibly compete with all this online activity, it's in our collective best interest to get it out of the classroom.

A decade ago, the class sessions were highly interactive and conversational. Those conversations continued into office hours and beyond. But as each new gadget entered the classroom, it reduced the quality of the classroom experience. The appearance of wireless networking in the lecture hall, however, was catastrophic. The interactiveness of the class instantly vanished, the conversation died, and all communication shifted from human interaction to email. This dehumanization of the classroom is symptomatic of the change being wrought on our culture by information technology: everything in the world has become an object at the end of a wire or wave, including me. Though I teach the science of technology and I use technology to teach, I am well aware of technology's dark side. Bringing all this distraction into the classroom is an example of that dark side.

By eliminating gadgets from class, I hope to reverse the cultural change and restart the conversation. For 3 hours a week, you'll have to live in the real world and take notes the old fashion way: with pencil or pen. If that arrangement doesn't appeal to you or you cannot manage without your electronic toys, you should probably find a different class.

Changes 4 and 5:

In previous semesters, I have observed a disturbing pattern in which some students who do extremely poorly on the exams receive nearly perfect homework scores. Since the questions on the exams and on the homework problem sets are very similar in content and style, the only significant difference between the exams and homework assignments is the physical context in which they are completed. Exams are given in a controlled environment whereas problem sets are done in an uncontrolled environment. My purpose in assigning the homework problem sets is to encourage students to learn the physics I cover in the book and in class, not to make it possible for students who aren't learning anything to boost their grades artificially. Changing how I score the exams will make it more obvious which students haven't learned any of the material. Instead of receiving approximately 25%, a student who is simply guessing at answers will receive approximately 0%.

There are two positive features of deemphasizing homework scores when calculating the semester grades of students whose exam scores differ significantly from the class average. First, it will reduce the artificial grade boost that a student can obtain by getting too much "help" from others. A student who doesn't learn anything from the problem sets, receiving high homework scores but then doing poorly on the exams, will not benefit as much from that charade. Second, it will reduce the penalty a student may encur by working independently on the homework assignments, receiving mediocre homework scores but then doing well on the exams.