Astro4Syllabus

Here's the plan for what we'll be doing each day - for the Mon-Wed morning class, and for the Mon Eve class. We may get a tad ahead or a tad behind. Quizzes will never (almost never?) be given a day early, but might be given a day late if we get behind.

Lectures

I use powerpoint presentations most days in class. I'll be adding hyper links to these as I complete them. Here's the home page for the Astro 4 PowerPoints.

Study Guides

Please note - a 3-unit lecture course is required to contain material requiring 2 hours of home study for every hour of in-class lecture. That means that, including the lecture itself, you should be spending 9 hours per week on this course. I expect that you will study hard and you should expect that a university-level transfer science class such as this will require you to study hard, regardless of what, personally, is your mastery level going into the course.

In this syllabus you'll be getting two study guides. One covers each of the text-oriented quizzes, and the other covers the comprehensive final exam. In the study guide, for each quiz you'll see about 8-10 sections listed, one for each of the questions on that quiz. Note that only a fraction of the sections in the book are covered on the exams. You do not have to master the entire book to do well. But you DO need to master the sections covered on exams, which may mean reading the entire chapter (or "unit" as they call them in this text) to get oriented and pick up the basic context. Then, focus more study time on the sections corresponding to the questions. Here are the Astro 4 Mon/Wed morning Study Guides. And here are the Astro 4 MonEve Study Guides. I've also made up a larger list of the key points which are addressed in my test data bank. This list covers essentially all questions in the test bank; now since you will only be seeing maybe 20% of that total, you should pay more attention to the particular study guides relevant for this semester, as linked above. The schedules will help you plan your studying.

Many texts, including ours, are a little too obsessed with purely descriptive presentations. Unfortunately, one can get lost in factoids and miss the important principles, and it's the principles which are easiest to learn and use, like... for tests! So I'm putting together my own super-condensation of the principles we'll be learning in this class - just follow this link.

Grades

Grades are a bummer! But, the law says I've got to assign them. Remember that they just reflect your performance, not your intelligence, human worth, likeability, or anything else. Since nearly all of your grade comes from multiple choice exams, you get the advantage of lucky guesses even when you don't know the answers. IMPORTANT STRATEGY - I don't try to trick you; you'll do worse if you try and "psych out" the questions. Read the question, circle on the question sheet your first instinct, and then read again more carefully and DON'T change your answer without a solid reason. The questions are assembled by software and there is absolutely no correlation, nor anti-correlation between which letters a,b,c,d are the right answer! It's truly random!

My quizzes and exams are drawn randomly from a test bank of approximately 350 multiple choice questions which I've carefully written myself. Before each semester I look again at every question and do any revisions needed. Any given class will see only a fraction of these questions on their quizzes and the final. About 65% of these questions can be answered directly from material in the text by simply reading, grasping, and remembering. Another 18% are drawn from material in my lectures, most of which is related to text material. Again, these require only remembering from your careful notes. Finally, there is another 17% of questions which will require you to not only understand your reading and/or notes, but to use your reasoning to make inferences and draw new conclusions. So like all good exams, there's a mixture of easy, moderate, and harder questions.

* Quizzes: 70%. There will be 6 "text quizzes" covering lecture and textbook material (about 8-10 multiple choice questions each), and 4 "video quizzes" (~13-26 multiple choice's). The "text quizzes" are closed-book. On the videos you should definitely take notes, and you may use these notes and only these notes while taking the video quizzes. If you miss a quiz, it is initially recorded as a 0 (zero). At the end of the semester, my software will look at all of your quiz scores and drop the two lowest quizzes. If you missed one quiz, that one will be dropped and also your lowest other quiz dropped. If you missed two quizzes, it is those two and only those two which will be dropped. For any additional missed quizzes, you will take an “F”. There are no makeups. The average of your remaining quizzes will be your quiz score, and accounts for most of your course grade. Each exam has equal weight. Note that students usually do better on the video quizzes.

Video Quizzes: 4 ~50 minute-long video's will be shown during the semester. During the video you take notes and you may have these notes, and ONLY these notes, open while you take a quiz immediately after the video. There'll be ~15-25 questions depending on the video. Each exam, regardless of length, counts the same.

* Final Exam 30%: 50 multiple choice questions on lecture/ text material only (not the videos). Closed book, but you can bring in a single 8x10" sheet of paper filled with notes (yes, you can use sub-microscopic printing - be thankful for those youthful eyeballs that can focus up-close!).

* Extra Credit! You can raise your final grade percentage by doing extra credit in several ways. See the separate Extra Credit page for more.

* CLASS PARTICIPATION: My computer will give a final numerical percentage score for you. Then, when I actually assign the letter grades at the end, I will look at how close you came to making the next higher grade and then remember how interested and involved you were during the course. It's like a bit of extra credit for "attitude". Of course, I'll never ever give you a lower grade than your scores indicate.

Important note: If you miss the final, here's what'll happen. If you've already got a good reputation with me for working hard and the other Astro final still hasn't been given, you may sit in and take their exam (same text and course, but different questions... I can't let you take the same exam you missed, for security and fairness to those who were there). Unfortunately, that means a different final than your study guide was tailored for. If your class has the last final exam time so there is no chance to sit in on the other class's final, I will look at your average quiz grade, lower it by 1 and a half grades, and assign that as your final exam grade. Or, if your grades are otherwise good and you let me know right away, I can give you an "incomplete".) Example; your average quiz score is "B", but you miss the final. You will get a "C-" score for your final... So, DON'T MISS THE FINAL!!!

Grading Scale: Letter grades will be assigned from your total cumulative percentage as follows:

A......80% and above

B......70% - 79%

C......60% - 69%

D......50% - 59%

F......below 50%

Pass; 60% and above.

At the end of the semester my computer takes the weighted average of all your work, plus extra credit, and gives a final percentage out of a total possible 100%. Only then do I assign a letter grade. Note: write down your quiz scores as you go along so you can calculate what your grade would be at that moment. I expect the average grade will be in the low or mid B range. But that includes a lot of students with poor study habits. However, re-entry housewives, senior citizens in their 70’s, and high school students… have all earned “A” grades when they come to lecture, do the reading, and ask questions about material they don't understand. But note too, that 18-22 years olds in the prime of their life, but with maturity issues or poor study habits - have gotten F's.

Exam Policies

In order to speed scoring and to sample a larger range of questions, I give only multiple choice quizzes/exams which you'll do on those small, green, long, narrow scantron sheets. These are available from the bookstore for cheap; 11 (total of $2.50) will get you through the semester. I do not give make-up exams. I haven't figured out how to give a fair makeup exam which still strongly encourages proper attendence. That's why you're allowed 2 misses without taking zeros. The dates of the quizzes are on the schedule above. Remember, I consider any exam you take, in principle, as a fair sample of your mastery. The only reason I drop two is to not penalize the occasional, tragic, legitimate miss. Beyond those two, a missed quiz is recorded as an "F".

I hand back your scantron sheets after scoring. Write down your scores and keep a running average so you'll know how you're doing. Just drop your lowest exam, add up the total possible’s, add up your number correct's, divide one into the other, compare to the scale above. Those used to rote factoid-ized learning may be surprised and find my exams will stress grasping the logical connections. But remember, I like to hear questions! I know some of this material is rather abstract and I don't expect everyone will get it the first time; but only YOU can identify what you don't understand. Don't let your shyness get the better of you! The more involvement and questions you put forth, the more fun I have. And the more fun I have, the more fun it'll be for everyone. Remember, if the teacher isn't having a good time, NObody has a good time!

* Dropping the class: My policy is not to drop anyone. If you just stop showing up and don't tell anyone, you may end up with an "NC" on your record. If you stop showing up early, I may spot the pattern of your not taking several quizes in a row and drop you on the final "W" roster. But maybe not... This has happened too many times. Don't let it happen to you!

--Last day to go for credit/no credit is Apr 14.

--Last day to withdraw is Wed May 7 if you tell me (I'll note it on the “W” census, I must submit the census on May 10.

Once the withdrawal cutoff has happened, there's nothing I can do to keep you from getting a grade for the class - Our dean says she will no longer sign grade changes to "W" for forgetful students.

* Credit/No Credit: The counselors can tell you if you can or should take this class credit/no credit. The purpose of CR/NC is to allow students to take non-essential classes "for fun", without grade pressure. It's tempting to use it as an "out" to make sure you never get a D or F, but that ruins the value of grades in evaluating performance, hence they give the early deadline. So, you need to tell me by my deadline if you decide to go for CR/NC.

How to Approach this Course

What will make for a good class? I do love teaching interested people about their universe. I like to try and figure out new ways to describe the workings of the planets, stars, and galaxies with down-to-earth analogies. I like listening to you and figure out how you think, how you reason, how you construct your interpretations. No matter how foolish the world may often be, the workings of the universe at large have a logic, a symmetry, and a harmony which is beautiful to all who open themselves to it. If you can think of our time together as your time to just be curious, to talk with me, and to discover, we'll have a great time.

The ideal class "esprit de corps" would be informal and conversational... more a discussion than a "lecture", but focused on science and astronomy (at least, most of the time).

Added Attractions

* Get practice learning the art of thinking like a scientist! Learn healthy skepticism, and sharpen up your reasoning skills so you can debunk the pseudo-science types!

* A visit to Cabrillo's planetarium.

* Purple Sucker Awards! For each quiz, those making a perfect score will earn a token of my esteem; (chocolate. Hey, it's now a health food!), and the accolades of the class.

* Bulletin boards for seeing the latest neat stuff on astronomy, as well as local lecture series, star parties, etc.

*Weather permitting, a star party at Cabrillo Observatory, or perhaps at Bonny Doon Airport. Stay tuned for a date. It'll likely coincide with a regular starparty night for the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club.

* Most days I'll show Powerpoint presentations (lots of dramatic Hubble Space Telescope views) and the occasional video on lurking killer Astro events, supernovae, and the Milky Way Galaxy. You'll enjoy them.

* Here's supplementary material which is definitely interesting

**** Nolthenius-brand aridly dry humor to leaven the proceedings!

And Finally...

“Students needing ‘accommodations’ should contact the instructor ASAP. As required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), accommodations are provided to insure equal opportunity for students with verified disabilities. If you need assistance with an accommodation, please contact Disabled Student services, Room 810, 479-6379, or Learning Skills Program Room 1073, 479-6220.”