dr_phil_physics | Entries tagged with exams

Made It Through The Week

Last week seemed really rough. Sure, it was busy, but there were a number of days when I got home and wondered if anyone had gotten the number of the truck that had driven over me. But looking around, I realized that there were a lot of students who were sick and/or missing. The class after my last class sounded like a TB ward, including the instructor the other day. And the university put back up the signs on the doors saying that if you had the flu to go home.

And Mrs. Dr. Phil was both busy and dragging. And sinuses clogged. So I worked on getting some extra sleep, and chonked down some Sudafed PE and Advils during the day. And survived.

Exam 3

Of course I had exams on Friday. And I really tried hard to get everyone ready. Didn't completely work -- one of the exams proved to be tough and a couple of students gave up early. Blank exams? Yikes.

I always bring cookies to my exams. My 10am class just isn't into cookies much, though. Maybe it's too early? The curve ball this time was the butter cookies Mrs. Dr. Phil had found at the store. I tested one -- quality control you know -- and discovered that it said MAYBE on it. A quick check and I found that others said YES and NO.

Cool! Cookies you can ask questions of! Naturally the first student who tested this asked if they'd done well. The cookie said NO. I told them that they'd asked the wrong question. (grin)

And It Never Stops

Had an email from a student on Sunday afternoon asking about a handout that they couldn't get on the class webpage. Turned out it wasn't an HTML coding error, the website was down. Hell, the whole university server was down. And the Help Desk hasn't replied to my inquiry of almost two hours ago.

Fortunately, I had planned for such things, putting a mirror site on my own website. And I was able to let my closed Facebook group for my students know. But of course the main link is on the missing webpages, and it turns out that it's hard to Google. Will have to address that this week.

Anybody who needs it, by the way, the Dr. Phil Homepage at WMU Mirror Site is here.

(And the main website is back up.) (Whew)

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: tired

Primary Day In Michigan

There are bluish skies overhead and sun. No appreciable reason for Michigan voters not to go to the polls today. Obviously, there's a lot of national interest in the Michigan Republican Presidential Primary, especially as Mitt Romney claims to be a native son. But actually, there's a Democratic Presidential Primary as well. There are news stories that some Democratic nitwit is trying to organize Democrats into voting in the Republican primary, to influence the opposition, but like herding cats, there are different arguments as to who they should support. Mostly there are attempts to throw it for Santorum, given how close the polls have been and to embarrass Romney. Give it a rest, folks. Don't mess with other people's primaries. There's enough election shenanigans as it is, and stooping to crapping on your neighbor's lawn isn't very becoming.

I noticed that at Allendale's polling place, there was a Free Coffee station set up by the YES For Allendale people -- the only issue on the ballot that wasn't the primary. Yes, the YES people were more than 100 feet away from any of the church's doors. They looked to be having a good time standing around in the coolish sun and serving coffee to a couple of folks. Should've taken a picture, but I wanted to make it in to the office as soon as I could.

My political forecast of the day? I think Barack Obama will take the Democratic primary. (grin) All other bets are off. (double-think-grin)

Exam 2 Part One

There's a fine line during the morning hours between being able to get a parking spot in WMU Lot 61 and finding nothing. Today there was nothing. When I finally got a spot, it was at the far end of the lot -- the longest I've had to walk since I injured my leg nerve. Sigh.

My PHYS-1070 Elementary Physics class had their second exam today. I'd sent PDFs on to the department secretary late last night, so the copies were already waiting for me. I have to say, that though I am worried about a number of people, I was also pleased with the questions that some students brought to me and the fact that they can do this stuff, even if they don't think they can. Results should be interesting.

Even better, I think I had nearly everyone here, so there won't be too many makeups.

Exam 2 Part Two

My PHYS-1000 How Things Work class is supposed to have their second exam tomorrow at noon. There will be an exam written. The PDF will be sent to the department. Whether it gets copied, or whether I get in, or whether anyone will be there to proctor the exam, or anyone gets in to take it -- I can't say at this point. We've a major ice storm coming in, starting sometime after 10pm tonight and running all day Wednesday. The commute will either just be wet, a wet mess, a wet and slippery mess, or an OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE sort of road conditions.

Expect all the schools to be closed. Whether it's bad in Kalamazoo and Western "We Claim We Never Close Even Though We Do" Michigan University closes, I can't say. If Western does close, then we won't have the second exam before Spring Break -- which means it won't be a part of the Mid-Term grading. Oh well. And if the exam IS given, I don't know how many people will need makeups.

For all that today went well, tomorrow could be really stupid.

Sigh.

Speaking Of Stupid

Gas prices shot up 25 cents a gallon or so last week and another twenty cents yesterday. Up to $3.85.9/gal for regular this morning. Current rise is still being attributed to fear and no real changes in the marketplace. More or less. Still people talking about five dollar gas this summer -- and four dollars by Easter.

Reminds me that I should get gas in Wayland on the way home, so that I don't have to take time to get it in the morning...

Sigh.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: complacent

Friday 26 February 2010

Yes, once again it's WMU's Spirit Day. That magical day which was once before Homecoming in the Fall Semester, but was moved to the Spring Semester to balance the calendar and now allows them to "not" start Spring Break in February. (grin)

So... today was not a work day.

Recovery Day

It's been a long and busy week-to-ten-days or so. Though Spring Break showed up on the calendar at about the same time as in 2009, we started classes a week later, so it's been tough to keep up with a schedule and be ready for Exam 2 on time for Thursday. We made it. And then there's been the roads, which have included a number of days of either very long commutes or very icy glazes on the roads and long lists of crashes and slideoffs. Last night I found myself shimmying around on the highway when hit by hard crosswinds -- thank goodness for 4WD. It's not magic, but it does add stability to all four corners. We managed to get to/fro work as well.

Took the opportunity to get some extra sleep today, but also managed to catch the Women's Bronze Medal Curling match between China and Switzerland on USA network. Ran out to do some errands and was amazed at 3:21pm on the way to the bank to hear on WLAV-FM that the Men's Hockey Semi-Final between USA and Finland was already 4-0 in the 1st Period. Eek! A few minutes later on the way home and they reported that Finland had changed goalies and it was now 6-0. Still in the 1st Period.

Back End Of The Storm

Unusual weather pattern had us getting the back curl of the big Northeastern winter storm. It came at around noon with big soft flakes. Nothing like they got in New York, where 6-12" of fluffy white stuff was covering a thick, deadly heavy water soaked layer of wet snow. The heavy stuff was weighing heavily on the trees in Central Park, where one tree limb broke and killed a guy, and another tree limb took out a city bus before they closed Central Park to vehicles and pedestrians.

slithytove in Philadelphia described a lovely wintry scene outside, without the heavy wet stuff where he lives.

Sometimes if there is no traffic on a snowy day like today I'll put on the four-way flashers and stop in the left hand lane to get the newspaper and mail from the road. But there was too much traffic, so I pulled into our driveway. A Chevy Astro van, which had been following me, pulled over to the side of the road... and was quickly enveloped in a huge cloud. Coolant. The young lady driving it was grousing about almost being where she needed to go, it was the second time there'd been a leak, she'd just put in a bottle of Stop Leak and what was she expecting for a beat up van she'd paid all of $100 for within the last two weeks. Her friend was coming to get her -- I suspect it was one of the nearby motorheads and they'd be much more capable of helping her than me -- so I wished her luck and told her if she was stuck out there for any length of time to come up to the house. I heard her hood slam when I was getting out of the Blazer in the garage, but couldn't see anything through the trees. She never came by and Mrs. Dr. Phil said there was no van on the shoulder when she came home. I hope it works out okay for her.

Spring "Break"?

I've got a list of way too many things to do next week. But after Monday, the weather looks sunny and warm -- in the upper 30s -- for the rest of the week. So we'll see what I can accomplish. And at the moment, I don't have a cold and my sinuses are in much better shape than the last couple of years.

There may be some news next week -- or maybe not. You can never tell with these things.

We'll see.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: busy

Huh?

Tuesday I tanked up the 1996 Blazer. Regular gas was $2.59.9/gal. It's been at that price for about a week or more. Today I was driving around town and gas was $2.75.9 and $2.76.9 per gallon for regular. WTF? Once again, gas prices have no relationship to anything going on in the world.

Nothing new here, I guess. Nothing to see, move on, move on. Bend over and pay the man.

Exam 2 Next Week?

WMU began Fall Semester after Labor Day -- and Labor Day in the U.S. came as late as it could be in the calendar. Unfortunately, not only do they want us to post mid-term grades this year, they also wanted us to post first-grades. And the posting cutoff dates to the Registrar's grade system were such that I had to move up my exams by about a week compared to the same class in Fall 2008.

Then there Tuesday's class. Only maybe half the students were there. I commented on this at the end to a couple of students, wondering if the missing were just skipping, hating my lectures... or whether they were sick. The students all agreed that it was probably the flu. H1N1 is racing through parts of the WMU population -- they have two dorms for use as quarantine dorms, or students are allowed to go home. Actually, West Michigan has a lot of schools which are closed for 2-3 days because so many students are sick. The bottom of the screen during the news looks like snow storm season with the latest school closings. (grin) Over the weekend one local school forfeited a football game because of the flu -- over 100 out of 300-some students were out at that school.

So now the game begins. Because we're locked into Exam 2 on Tuesday -- but I suspect we'll have a lot of no shows. Maybe people will be able to do a make-up on Thursday, but not everyone is going to have a complete mid-term grade. Can't be helped. Maybe I'll have to declare a forfeit.

C'est la vie.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: contemplative

Actual One

Last weekend the forecasts were all about the storm coming on Thursday. Sunday Channel 3 out of Kalamazoo was predicting 10" of snow. But by Monday the other meteorologists were saying they wouldn't try to call it for a few days, that the models were too different and everything depended on how the storm actually tracked. Still, they were talking rain turning into snow and then rain again, making for a lot of slush. Since I'd assigned a nasty take-home quiz to all three classes, one involving solving six equations in six unknowns by brute force algebra only, I changed its due date to Friday. No point in people getting into trouble on the road just to turn in a quiz.

But by the time Thursday had come, the slushy stuff was on Wednesday and not much of a problem. Colder and windier on Thursday itself, but ultimately not much of a problem either. True, west of us along the Lake Michigan shore a lot of places got clobbered. The heavy snow band, said to go from Muskegon to Jennison to Battle Creek, failed to make it to anywhere on US-131 or the northern part of Kalamazoo. A few places had windswept dry snow blowing around, but otherwise we had sun and blue sky on the way down.

When I came out in the evening to drive home, people were brushing off a small amount of snow. But the 1996 Blazer is pretty aerodynamic and other than lifting the wiper blades to make sure they weren't glazed to the windshield, there was nothing to brush off.

Actual Two

Less severe than Thursday's storm, WOOD-AM was reporting heavy blowing and drifting snow in Allegan County on Friday morning, said to be making US-131 both was "miserable". Allendale had these big fluffy compound snowflakes which didn't want to fall, but just sort of hung in the air. Needless to say, given this entry's title, US-131 was full speed all the way and sunshine, too.

Scheduled Three

All three of my classes had Exam 2 scheduled on Thursday 26 February 2009. But with the death of former WMU President Diether Haenicke, current President Dunn sent an email announcing that all classes on the 26th would be canceled from 1:45 to 5:00 pm to allow faculty, staff and students attend the memorial service in Miller Auditorium. That pretty much meant that I had to move Exam 2 to Wednesday, but unfortunately a lot of the Wednesday classes which don't meet on Thursday were already scheduling exams before Spring Break.

My student lose both a day to study and many end up with multiple tests on the same day. Wednesday will be a long day for everyone.

Scheduled Four

The sad thing is that if President Dunn is expecting a lot of students to show up for the memorial service, he'll be disappointed. See, Friday the 27th is WMU Spirit Day. It used to be the day before the Homecoming football game, but the other year Spirit Day was moved to the Friday before Spring Break. So somehow we celebrate our school spirit... by leaving town early?

With Thursday the 26th afternoon classes, how much you wanna bet that a lot of students will bag their Wednesday morning classes and start Spring Break a day, or even a day-and-a-half, early.

And that's how you get a series of non-events around here.

Next!

It's 3am and we're expecting heavy snow, about 1-2" per hour, from 4am to 4pm on Saturday. We'll see. (grin)

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: complacent

I Suppose It Has To Happen Sometime

Today was my Exam 1 day for all three of my classes -- two sections of PHYS-2070 (Electricity & Magnetism, Calculus level) and one PHYS-1150 (E&M, Algebra level). It's busy, but it's been fun so far. I had hoped to spend my 2-4pm block of back-to-back exams doing some writing. Alas, twas not to be. Had a fire to enrage and then put out.

I'm in my 51st semester of teaching. Exams are both good things and bad. But if you're going to go ahead and give exams, you've got to take them seriously. And sometimes someone is going to take them way too seriously.

2:00pm

One thing I do after everyone starts is to take the remaining stack of papers and start numbering them from N downward, where N is the number of copies made. Then I count Students In Chairs, usually twice to check for errors. Then I ask if there are any extra papers out in the room -- and if there are, I ask "Why?" (grin)

This class had 70 copies made. My own count accounted for 68. Sure enough, there was one up in the "stands", which was brought down. Then the unbelievable.

"This Guy Left With One"

Say what? What do you mean someone took an exam and walked out with it? Why that would be cheating!

I asked if anyone knew the miscreant. Didn't really expect an answer. Then I suggested that if anyone did know who it was, that after the exam they should have that person contact me as soon as possible. Before it was reported to the Dean.

SERIOUS PROBLEM

I have a report that a student left with a copy of the PHYS-2070 Exam
at the start of the 2pm class. 70 copies were made and I can only place
69 of them. The conclusion is that someone has stolen a copy of the exam.

THIS SORT OF MICKEY MOUSE BEHAVIOR IS NOT ACCEPTABLE BY ADULTS IN THE UNIVERSITY.

If the person who stole the exam contacts me immediately, I may not fail
them or forward their name to the dean for disciplinary action.

If you know who this person is, please tell them to come forward immediately.

There will be NO Make-up Exam 1's on Monday, as I have to write a totally
new Make-Up exam. The stolen exam will be useless to the person for the
purposes of cheating.

I am not pleased. -- Dr. Phil

A Folded Piece Of Paper

In between classes a student brought me a folded copy of the 2pm exam and confessed that he had taken it and left. One of his buddies had told him to turn himself in, that "Dr. Phil was pissed". Seems the student was terrified of failing the exam. I ended up giving him a copy of the Noon exam and told him to take it right then and there.

Last semester I suspected that some ringers were coming into the back of the big lecture hall and taking the astronomy exams for others, because they didn't stay for the lecture after the exam. Of course, it turns out that some students figure that in a big lecture class like that you just have to cram the books and screw going to the actual class, so maybe it was nothing. I've added procedures to deal with these things.

But I was always such a goody two-shoes in my life, that cheating is totally foreign to me. While I am wily and wise to the ways of others, I do wish my ideal was a little more widespread.

Sigh.

Dr. Phil

Current Mood: disappointed

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Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

Those Who Lie In Wait, Dream Deep

Entries tagged with exams

Whew

The Calm Before The Storms

Spurt Day

Bad Numbers

A Series of Non-Events

Fifty-One Fail