Instructors

James Mayer
Phone: (480) 965-9601
email:james.mayer@asu.edu
FAX:(480) 965-9004
Office: Physical Science B 233
Address: Center for Solid State Science, Box 871704, ASU, Tempe, AZ 85287-1704

Course Coordinator

Elizabeth Mayer
Phone: (480) 965-2390
email: ebm@asu.edu
Office: Computing Commons, 3rd Floor
Address: Computing Commons, Box 870101, ASU, Tempe, AZ 85287-0101

Laboratory Coordinator

Frank Mayer
email: frank.mayer@asu.edu

Textbooks

There are no required written textbooks for the course, since all the readings are online. However, an Optics Kit must be purchased to complete many of the Home Activities. This can be purchased in the ASU Book Store.

Course Description

Project-oriented science course to develop critical thinking, and technical skills. This course is concerned with light and microscopy at the conceptual level. Very few mathematics skills are necessary to succeed in this course, but a healthy love and curiosity for understanding the workings of the universe is essential to get the most out of your experience. Each week there are readings, activities, and exercises dealing with a particular concept (or two) in light, optics, or microscopy.

Student Responsibilities

Checking In

Each concept builds on the previous weeks' topics, so the student should expect to stay current in each week's readings and activities. Students should also check their email and the Announcements page every weekday and weekends.

Activities

The activities are carried out at home using (usually) everyday household items or objects from the Optics Kit that you'll be receiving (see Welcome page). Along with each activity is an Activity Reply on the Web site that you will complete and submit by midnight Sunday of that week.

Readings

Supplementing the Activities and forming the foundation for the content of the course are the Readings. At least one reading is assigned for each week/concept. All of the readings are located on the Patterns Web site and can be printed out for hardcopy use. If you do decide to print out copies of the readings, please make sure you have set the page and printer settings correctly to print out the entire width of the page and all of the images.

Exercises

A short exercise based on the current concept and readings will be assigned each week to be due on Sunday at midnight. We have set up the exercise pages to be graded automatically and instantaneously by the Web server. In order for this procedure to work correctly, you should be running either at least Netscape Navigator 4.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 as your Web browser. Please do not try to access the exercises or exams on a America On-Line browser. All of the assessment for the Patterns course will be completed in the Assignments section of the site. Late submissions (less than one week past due) will be marked 50% off the graded score. More than one week late submissions will get zero credit.

Friday/Saturday Labs

Because some of the concepts we cover in this course cannot be addressed with simple home experiments or activities, there are two Saturday lab sessions scheduled in which we will perform more in-depth activities and use more sophisticated technologies (e.g. scanning electron microscopes, optical microscopes).

Lab sessions are scheduled as follows:
LAB ONE:
Friday, September 20, GWC 487, 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Saturday, September 21, GWC 487, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Saturday, September 21, GWC 487, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM


LAB TWO:
Friday, October 18, GWC 487, 2:40 PM - 6:00 PM
Saturday, October 19, GWC 487, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Saturday, October 19, GWC 487, 1:00 pM - 4:00 PM

Make-Up Labs (by permission only):
Lab 1: Saturday, November 16, GWC 487, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Lab 2: Saturday, November 16, GWC 487, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM


You MUST attend Labs One and Two. Space is limited so sign up with Frank Mayer in the first week at frank.mayer@asu.edu.

Exams

There will be three exams administered in this course. The first will cover material from weeks 1 through 4. The second will cover material from weeks 5 through 9. The Final exam will be given on Week 14 and will be cumulative. These exams will be posted electronically and graded automatically once submitted. The exams will be available on Thursday of the week scheduled and will be due by Sunday midnight at the end of that week.

Instructor Responsibilties

Checking In

As we are constantly developing this course, we are always willing to talk about any suggestions or comments you have regarding the course. James or Elizabeth can be contacted via email or phone. See the Contacts page or the Staff Information section for more info. If you have technical problems with the course, please contact the Distance Learning staff at dlt-help@asu.edu or (480) 965-6922 or (480) 965-5764.

Grading

On each Monday morning, we will collect the Activity Reply and the scores for the Exercise submitted the previous week. The Activity Replies and the Exercise scores will be generated automatically and entered into a spreadsheet. The Exam scores will similarly be processed automatically. If you have any questions about your scores, please contact James Mayer by email or phone.

Grading Scale

There are 414 possible graded points available in this course. All points (except Saturday labs) will be earned via Web-based interaction so it is critical that your Web browser can handle the scripts necessary to submit your work.




14 Exercises	@10 pts/exercise	= 140
12 Activity Replies	@2 pts/activity	=  24
3 Exams	@50 pts/exam	= 150
2 Saturday Labs	@50 pts/lab	= 100




370 - 414	=	A
310 - 369	=	B
260 - 309	=	C
210 - 259	=	D
< 209	=	E