PHY 140Y
FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS
Restructuring Discussions
 
 

The Provost has required that every course affected by the TA strike develop a "restructuring plan" that would clearly identify to the students how they would be evaluated and what material they would be responsible for. In PHY140Y, we already have set and graded about half the lab, half the problem sets and two-thirds of the term tests. Given that the course instructors can arrange to get the last term test marked (we will presumably set a multiple guess mid-term) as well as the final exam, a restructured grading scheme only needs to reflect the change in the grading of the labs and the problem sets.

Another consideration, however, is that students have as much opportunity to improve their grade as possible, given that for many the first term was sort of an adapting experience. This suggests the idea of allowing two alternative grading schemes, and on a student-by-student basis using the one that provides a student with the highest grade.

Therefore, we propose the following restructuring:

  • Use two alternative marking schemes, with the largest score from the two being used for the final grade.
  • The first scheme will be the default in place now, with

    Component  
    Weight
    		  
    Comments
    Labs  
    20%
    		  
    First term labs and lab report
    Term Tests  
    25%
    		  
    Two 1st term tests and multiple choice 3rd mid-term
    Final Exam  
    35%
    		  
    Marked by Strong and Sinervo
    Problem Sets  
    20%
    		  
    Equally weighted, with last four only marked on basis of good attempt at each problem

  • The alternate scheme will be

    Component  
    Weight
    		  
    Comments
    Labs  
    10%
    		  
    First term labs and lab report
    Term Tests  
    35%
    		  
    Two 1st term tests and multiple choice 3rd mid-term equally weighted
    Final Exam  
    40%
    		  
    Marked by Strong and Sinervo
    Problem Sets  
    15%
    		  
    First term sets have twice the weight of second term sets, with last four only marked on basis of good attempt at each problem

  • If we are able to run voluntary labs, students may be able to improve their lab marks by having the worst lab dropped.

    Please send comments to the course instructors on this proposal. We will finalize this restructuring plan next Tuesday, February 1.

    This site is maintained by Pekka Sinervo.
    Last updated January 28, 2000.

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