Introductory Meeting
Depending on the schedule for the semester there may or may not be an experiment the first week you meet. In any event you should take about 30 minutes to handout class materials, describe class rules and proceedures and instruct the students on how to write a lab report. Once this is complete you can go on to the first experiment or dismiss the students as appropriate.
Dealing with unregistered students
Any student who is not registered for your lab should be sent away. If they wish to add or switch to your section they can go to the department homepage at http://www.physics.sjsu.edu/ to fill out a form to be put on a waiting list.
Handouts
Instructors should pass out green sheets and lab manuals (20 hardcopies of each will await you in the lab). Do not allow students who are unregistered to take a handout. There is one extra copy of each of these in the instructor binder that you can lend to students who forget their lab manual any given week.
Class procedures
General class rules and procedures are described in the green sheets and are summarized below. You may implement your own rules as necessary in addition to these
- The lab manual describes what is required in a lab report, and suggests many issues related to style.� Since an important aspect of this class is teaching students who to write a lab report, please require students adhere to the guidelines in the lab manual when writing lab reports.
- Students are required to complete all of the labs, in the section they are registered.� If they must miss a lab I've asked them to contact their lab�instructors to determine if there is a way to make it up to your satisfaction.� I leave it to your discretion how to go about this.� If you wish to have them attend another lab section to compete the lab (as a one-time only change), have the instructor of that section sign their work and have the student submit the report to you for grading. Make up students will only be allowed to participate in another section if there are fewer than 20 students in attendance.� Once the week is over the lab equipment will be removed and the lab will not be able to be made up. An alternative is the last experiment printed in the lab manual. This is not a regular lab that the students will perform, but rather is intended as a make-up that can be done independently without the need to access any lab equipment.
- Students who are retaking physics 50, but who passed the lab the last time they took it still must complete the lab again.��
- It is your responsibility to keep track of the student's progress in the lab and submit lab "grades" (pass/fail). A few weeks before the end of the semester you will be given a form to fill out with the students names, the name of their lecture instructor and their grade.
- Please provide enough background for the students to understand the key concepts of the lab, but make an effort to confine this lecture portion of the class to the first 15 minutes, to allow students adequate time to complete the experiment and lab report.
Other
In the front of the lab you will find a white 3-ring binder for instructors. This contains a copy of the schedule, emergency contact information, a week-by-week collection of overhead transparencies that will be useful in describing the lab to the students and a copy of the lab manual.
Where to go for help:
If you find any equipment is broken or missing, or if you find any mistakes in the lab manual, please email me to let me know.� If you have an issue with equipment and need help during a lab and I am not available, please contact Minh Mai at�408-924-5215, in Sci 244 or at�mcmai@email.sjsu.edu.�
Created Fall 2008 by Peter Beyersdorf