PHYS 101 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Course Description

College Physics:  Mechanics & Heat

Credit: Credit is not given for both PHYS 101 and either PHYS 211 or PHYS 213.

Prerequisite: Trigonometry.

Physics 101 is a non-calculus-based approach to classical mechanics and thermodynamics. Topics covered include:

Course Goals

By the end of this course the student will be able to:

Course Components

All students are required to participate in all course components. 

Credit is granted in each course component. 

All course components are subject to the Academic Integrity Policy.

Learning Strategy

Our learning philosophy is tailored to help students efficiently process problems in physics by providing the necessary experiences.

In introductory physics, the learning philosophy of the Department of Physics can be summarized as follows:

  1. Think About It! (pre-lectures and checkpoints)
  2. Untangle It! (lectures)
  3. Challenge! (homework)
  4. Apply and Explore It! (labs)
  5. Close the Loop! (discussion)

This course covers a large amount of new material:

Component Description

Think About It: Pre-lectures and Checkpoints

Due before each lecture, these web-based assessments are designed to introduce the key ideas/concepts of the lecture. 

Assignments are due as presented in the course schedule.

Pre-lecture

Checkpoint

Untangle It:  Lecture

Participation is required.

Participation will occur as follows:

Each lecture will focus on a topic of the day as described in the course schedule

The notes from each lecture will be posted on the course website, see the links in the course schedule.

Challenge: Homework

Homework is assigned and distributed through flipitPhysics.  The homework is due according to the course schedule (typically on Thursdays at 8am).

You must work on the problems before, and complete them by the deadline in flipitPhysics to receive full credit for the homework.

Homework problems are designed to:

Background for the homework is provided by:

The web-based homework covering each week's material is due the following week.

To start work on a homework assignment:

Apply and Explore It: Laboratory

The lab cycle (see course schedule) is designed to provide the opportunity to explore the applications and implications of the concepts developed in lecture.

The laboratory portion of this course will consist of four (4) 3-hour laboratories.

  1. A prelab exercise due the morning of each laboratory period.
  2. The laboratory exercise in which students will:
    1. plan and set up simple experiments to investigate topics studied in class
    2. perform measurements of different phenomena studied in lecture
    3. analyze experimental results
    4. make conclusions based on their results and their understanding of the experimental system.
  3. A laboratory write-up which will be completed during the session and turned in at the end of the lab session.

Close the Loop: Discussion

Students must be on time for discussion. Students arriving more than 10 minutes late for discussion will receive a grade of 0% on their group assignment for the day.

Each discussion session will consist of the following:

Supplemental

Also there will be open office hours every week to give students one-on-one assistance if they need more help.  Do not be bashful about taking advantage of these!

Academic Integrity

All activities in this course are subject to the Academic Integrity rules as described in Article 1, Part 4, Academic Integrity, of the Student Code.

Infractions include, but are not limited to:

Violations of any of these rules will be sanctioned and reported to the student's home college.

All aspects of the course are covered by these rules, including: