Syllabus: Short Official Version
**
Astro labs always START in the first week of classes.
Of course, lab section periods that coincide with
UNLV holidays
do NOT meet.
So lab sections with section periods coinciding with
UNLV holidays
in the first week do NOT meet in the first week.
***
For summer semester courses, the lab nights are
TWR---that is all of TWR for each individual section---it's a compressed course.
The lab time period is 7:30--10:30 pm.
Astronomy Lab Coordinator / Instructor:
EOF
Items:
Yours truly does NOT like to do that after a semester has started, but sometimes small
updates or even large ones are needed.
Any large updates will be called to the attention of the students by email and during the lab periods.
This can always be done with Canvas (unlv).
They will make those adjustments known to you in the lab period itself and sometimes by email communications.
There is NO manual to buy.
The labs are still a bit under construction, and so the
lab instructors may need to compensate
for deficiencies and gaps for awhile.
We previously used
Diane Pyper Smith's A Guide to Astronomy,
but this is now phased out.
Each grade record consists of 4 lines: example of a semester end complete grade record
with line descriptions below:
Typically, a section GPA will be in the B- to B range, NOT counting
the grades of students who withdraw from the class officially or unofficially.
Official university section GPAs will often be lower than the section GPA arrived at by
lab instructor
since the official university section GPAs include students who are officially still in the class,
but have de facto
abandoned it---such students usually get F's.
In any section, there do NOT have to be any D's or F's---there do have to
be B's and C's. There will usually be A's---but not necessarily.
The lab instructors keep track of marks
and assign the letter grades, NOT
the lab coordinator.
As described above the class GPA will probably be in the B- to B range.
The reason for the simplified 5-point fixed scale
is that is
very difficult to find a set full fixed scale or a curve that adequately assesses students
before all marks are in.
After the marks are all in, yours truly will
have a better idea how to distribute the grades fairly.
Lab reports are the marked results of doing the lab exercises.
Students typically work in groups of 3. Two-person groups are allowed.
FOUR-PERSON GROUPS are FORBIDDEN, unless there are more than 24 people in the lab room
which might happen on a rare occasion when many students are doing
makeups from another section.
Generally, each student must write a lab report, unless otheriwse directed by their
lab instructor.
As indicated above in subsection
Evaluation,
lab reports are worth 50 % of the final grade.
Lab reports are mainly filled in during the lab period and are usually handed in at the
end for grading.
General questions (i.e., questions not arising in during the lab period itself) can be done ahead of time.
This is recommended as part of the preparation.
If a lab exercise cannot be completed during the lab period---usually because some observation
can't be carried out due to weather---the lab can be completed in the next period.
The lab instructors set their own preparation and
quizzes.
The specified preparation is for the labs and the quizzes.
The lab instructors decide on their own marking schemes
for the labs.
Note, however, that group members often have very similar reports, and so marking them all
in detail is time-consuming and redundant.
To deal with this situation, here are three suggestions for the
lab instructors:
But remember you must pass 6 labs at least to pass the course.
See the subsection Evaluation.
As indicated above in
the subsection Evaluation,
quizzes count for 40 % of the final grade.
The quizzes are usually given at the start of the lab period.
They will consist of about 10 questions and take about 10 minutes.
People who come late have to do the quiz out of the classroom---if the
lab instructor permits late starts at all.
The specified preparation is for the labs and the quizzes.
The lab instructors may make up their own
quizzes.
However, the lab coordinator does provide a standard set for the
lab instructors
who wish to use it---but this set is NOT yet quite complete for the new labs---quizzes 6 and 12
have yet to be completed.
For the rules on makeups for the quizzes, see
subsection Makeups below.
There will be 6 to 10 quizzes and only the top 5 count.
So you can afford to miss or not prepare for at least one quiz.
But the since the quizzes count for 40 % of the total grade, you should prepare for
at least 5 of them seriously.
It is recommended that you do all the quizzes and prepare for them all seriously.
The lab report marks often do NOT vary much between students.
The quiz marks often vary a lot.
So the quiz marks often have a strong influence on the letter grades
students get.
As indicated above in subsection Evaluation,
lab final is worth 10 % of the final grade.
But you must pass it to pass the course.
The rationale for the
lab final is that it ensures that certain very simple skills
(observational and otherwise) have been learnt by all students.
If you do the preparation for the lab final,
then you should pass it easily.
The lab final is usually given during the last period or last two periods
of the semester with different groups of students doing
the lab final at different times.
Students only come for their allotted times.
Early lab finals (if the
lab instructor permits them) and
lab final makeups are arranged with
the lab instructors.
The lab coordinator acting as
a lab instructor has his own
lab final which the other
lab instructors can use if they like.
If you are in the lab coordinator's sections,
see DavidJ's Lab Final
Instructions.
These instructions are updated for each new semester as the
lab final time approaches.
Makeup Notes:
So students
can always makeup at least one lab and one quiz before
the lab final.
Students
do need to take the initiative if they need
makeups.
For summer semesters,
special arrangements are needed if a second makeup period is needed.
If it's NOT, the makeups won't be offered.
Each student's
case will have be judged on its own merits.
The policies require that students be given the opportunity,
if reasonably possible, to make up marked items
missed for excusable absences: these being
religous holidays
and official extracurricular activities.
Thus, in general, you do NOT have to take a drop or a zero for such missed marked items.
You can request a makeup and your
lab instructor will try to accommodate you.
In the lab course, we do NOT have a dropped lab, but
quizzes beyond 5 are drops.
It is the responsibility of the instructor
to stop all disruptive or other inappropriate behavior in class.
Instructors can require that misbehaving students leave the classroom for the remainder of the period.
If the students refuse, the instructor will call the UNLV Police at 911
and have the UNLV Police deal with the situation.
Any serious misbehavior may result in the instructor filing a
student of concern report
with the Office of Student Conduct (OSC).
Anytime the instructor has to the call the UNLV Police,
there will be a
student of concern report.
Under certain circumstances, the instructor is required to
contact the UNLV Police: e.g., in the case of
a distressed student showing signs of alcohol or drug abuse.
Lab instructors and students are encouraged to review the
UNLV Student of Concern Guide Book.
If the link is dead,
UNLV IT has moved the guide book again and try
googling
UNLV Student of Concern Guide Book.
The most relevant pages are 9--10.
If you are having problems in life, the university does have resources to help you:
Students should do the
labs
per Lab Schedule.
It is best to do the
lab
on its recommended date.
However, there is NO absolute deadline for any
lab---except
the ABSOLUTE deadline for all items is the
Monday after the course ends since
grades are due Tuesday.
You work through each
lab
thusly:
The student can email the
lab instructor for help, but that is often
inefficient since the response might be relatively slow and email
responses often have their own ambiguities relative to students.
Yours truly
has noticed that students often try to skip the lab narrative and just
do the tasks, but then they don't know how and start doing
Web searches
for information which is usually hopeless---the
Web doesn't have
the specific information anywhere the student can find and for definitions,
the online definitions for astronomy terms that first appear are often misleading.
Inevitably, the student must think sometimes and the lab narrative is designed
to give the student the information to think on.
You do must attempt all tasks, except those
labeled
IPI only
(i.e, in-person instruction).
The IPI only.
Tasks usually involve using things NOT available to
RMI students:
telescopes,
lab equipment,
licenced software.
To access the lab keys, the student will need the SUPER-SECRET
username
password
which the
lab instructor
will email to the students.
Note that in
the summer semesters
during
June
and July,
the stars will start coming
out clearly only ∼ 8:30 pm
at the latitude
of Las Vegas, Nevada:
∼ 36° N.
For observing, you can always check
Sky map: Las Vegas, current time
and
Weather: Las Vegas.
If you are NOT in or near
Las Vegas, Nevada, you
will need to update
the sky map's
constrol fields.
The
Task: Naked-Eye Observation gives you directions for doing updates.
It is understood that
RMI students
may NOT be able to do a
lab
single session.
However, it is best that students
do and report the 2 or 3
labs
on the
Lab Schedule
for a given week in that week.
It is very tedious to catch up, if you fall much behind
Lab Schedule.
The student can then:
That is all. The student gets a mark just for having reported having done the
lab.
This is the recommended procedure since it saves emails and possible confusion.
For RMI
labs,
the student needs access to the
Web,
pen or pencil and writing material.
If a student has a printer
that would be convenient, but NOT necessary.
Without a printer,
a student will sometimes have to sketch
sky map by hand---but
that has its own educational value.
The RMI
labs,
do NOT use
things NOT available to
RMI students:
telescopes,
lab equipment,
licenced software.
Every
lab
has an associated quiz: e.g.,
Lab 1: Constellations
has
Quiz 1.
The lab
is the preparation/study guide for the quiz.
Soon after the student completes a
lab,
they should do the quiz.
The quiz is individual work and it is closed book/note/Web: only the student
brain can be used for information.
A calculator/phone can be used for calculations and only for calculations.
The quizzes are time-limited. The student has 2 minutes per question.
So for X questions, the student has 2X minutes.
Students with DRC accommodation for extended time have that extended time.
Once a student starts, they much complete in the alloted time.
The students are on their honor NOT to cheat.
There are
Rules for Remote Instruction Exams/Quizzes which explain how
to report exam/quiz answers---follows those rules.
Quiz solutions will be posted after all students have complete: e.g.,
Quiz 1
will be posted at
Quiz 1 solutions.
To access the quizzes and solutions, the student will need the SUPER-SECRET
username
password
which the
lab instructor
will email to the students.
This is the same as for accessing the lab keys.
The
RMI Lab Final
will be posted as per the
Lab Schedule.
The exam is a 2-hour exam will have 100 questions.
Otherwise, the rules are the same as for quizzes which
are also fully explicated at
Rules for Remote Instruction Exams/Quizzes.
EOF
With
remote instruction (RMI)
qualificatins inserted where needed.
The main items of the syllabus are below.
For reference for the lab instructors, the see long out-of-date
Dr. Diane Pyper Smith syllabus and
Dr. Diane Pyper Smith syllabus fact sheet.
As in any course, there are lots of fine details---such as those specific to
the individual lab instructors---that are just learnt along the way.
There are 3 evaluation items specified in the table below:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Table: Evaluation Items
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Item Weighting Number Drops Comment
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Labs 50 % 10 0 Students must pass at least 6 labs
to pass the course. A pass is 60%.
Rationale: This is a lab course
and lab skills are what are to be
developed.
Quizzes 40 % 6--10 1--5 Lab Instructors can choose
the number of quizzes to give
in the range 6--10, but only
highest 5 scores count.
Rationale: The quizzes enforce
prep/recap and allow individual
students to be better evaluated.
Lab final 10 % 1 0 The lab final must be deemed a pass
by the lab instructor
in order to pass the course.
Rationale: The lab final ensures
that certain simple skills are
learnt by all students.
Extra credit 0 % 0 0 There is NO extra credit.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
There are 3 evaluation items specified in the table below:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Table: Evaluation Items
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Item Weighting Number Drops Comment
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Labs 20 % 10 0 You get a mark just for reporting
the lab has been done with attempting
all tasks required for RMI and
self-checking against all task answers
which are posted.
Quizzes 40 % 10 0 The quizzes are done in the allotted
with NO outside aids after the
the corresponding lab has been completed.
Students are on their honor to follow the
Rules for Remote Instruction Exams/Quizzes
Lab final 40 % 1 0 A 2-hour, 100 question final with about
70 % of the questions drawn from the quizzes.
Students are on their honor to follow the
Rules for Remote Instruction Exams/Quizzes
Extra credit 0 % 0 0a There is NO extra credit.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Psamanthe Cumulative Ave.= 93.80 Dev.= 2.500 Letter Grade=A
Ave=100.0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Ave= 87.0 9 8 3 7 10 10 10 10 10 10
Ave= 95.0 95
Line Description:
The final grade is assigned on the
12-point scale (A,A-,B+,B,B-,C+,C,C-,D+,D,D-,F)
or the 5-point scale (A,B,C,D,F)
at the discretion of the lab instructor.
Lab instructors should see
Instructor Notes: Grading Policy.
For in-person instruction (IPI),
students should check with their
lab instructors to find out their current standing
in the course.
However, until all marks are in, I will be using simplified 5-point fixed scale:
The explication:
This preparation will always include reading over the lab exercise to be done from
Introductory Astronomy Laboratory Exercises (IALE).
Do the PREPARATION required by your lab instructor.
The marks on lab reports are generally fairly high.
This applies to only to classes taught by
in-person instruction (IPI),
of course.
It is the responsibility of students to be well behaved and to carry out the lab activity in a serious manner.
As explained above, it is ASSUMED that if you report the quiz answers for a
lab
that you have
done the
lab
too and you do NOT need to
make a separate report of having done it.
Quizzes will usually only be posted
on or near the day for the
lab in the
Lab Schedule.