Changes to ENGN0040 caused by transition to online format 2020

 

 

 

Quick Links:

• Office Hour Schedule/Zoom Links >> (you need to be logged into your Brown Google Suite account for link to work)
• Recitation Section Schedule/Zoom Links >>
• Lecture Recordings and Notes >>
• Problem Sets >>
• Prof Bower's appointment calendar (not for HW help - please use office hrs for that) >>
• Projects >>

 

1. Lectures: we have posted lecture-capture and lecture notes from 2019 classes on the notes page of the website. All lectures for the remainder of the semester are available now, and you can watch them at your convenience. The HW assignments for each week will tell you which lectures are covered by the HW.

 

2. Recitation Sections: We will attempt to live-stream recitation sections at the usual times via Zoom (9am, 1am, 11am, 1pm and 2pm Eastern time Mon and Wed). You can find Zoom meeting IDs for recitation sections in this Google spreadsheet (you need to be logged into your Brown Google Suite account for the link to work). Instructions for installing Zoom (from CIS) are here. After installing Zoom you should be able to click the links in the spreadsheet and connect.

If attendance at any of the recitations drops below 8 students or so they will be cancelled. Notes from recitation will be posted on the website as usual, and we will also attempt to post recordings of Monday sections (but not the Wed HW help sessions). Zoom has been struggling in some recent large group meetings, however, so this may not work. If we run into trouble we will post slides of the example problems.

 

3. Office Hours:TAs and faculty will be holding office hours by Zoom. The office hour schedule has been changed. You can find the new schedule, with zoom links in the Google Spreadsheet.

• When you join an office hr meeting you will be get a message telling you that you are in a 'waiting room' - the TA/faculty member will let you in once she/he is free.
• Calls will be answered in the order they arrive; once your questions have been answered you will be disconnected. If you have more questions you'll need to reconnect- so it will help to organize your questions and get them answered together, if you can.
• If everyone tries to call in at the same time there may be long wait times, but a very large number of office hrs have been scheduled so hopefully you will be able to get the help you need. Calling in early in the week/day is likely to minimize your wait.
• Please don't use office hrs to check your answers to problems...

4. Prof Bower appointment hours You can book a 15 min appointment to speak with Prof Bower on this appointment calendar. You'll get a zoom link for the meeting just before it starts. These are intended to be used for emergency help of some kind (eg discussing incompletes, etc). Please use regular office hrs for questions related to class material and assignments.

 

5. Homework assignments All remaining HW assignments for the semester have been posted. They continue to be due weekly on Fridays. We will use the live-streamed recitation sections to do example problems similar to HW questions on Mondays, and discuss the HW problems on Wednesdays.

 

6. Projects We have had to cancel the vibration isolation design project, the solar car design project and the quadcopter project, because these need access to the Brown Design Workshop and the quadcopter hardware. Instead, we are offering a choice of two individual final projects. These are described on the projects page of the website. The full project descriptions will be posted soon, in case anyone would like to start on them early (you have covered enough material in class already to be able to complete both projects).

 

7. Grading: The grading scheme for the class will be changed as follows:

• The course grading has been changed to mandatory S/NC. We hope this will reduce grade pressure for everyone, and will avoid putting at a disadvantage people who have difficulty accessing the course online. With the final exam and two open ended design projects cancelled, we also do not feel we can provide a complete and fair assessment of your performance and abilities this year, and do not want to penalize people for this. We have however tried to find alternative ways to recognize hard work and exceptional performance in the form of individualized performance reports.

• There will be no final exam for the course (but if your performance on the midterm was not sufficient for an S grade, or you missed the midterm because of illness, you will be able to take a second exam at the end of the semester to make up. We will follow up with more information about the make-up exam later, as we need to work out a way to schedule and administer this exam online.)

• The following grades will be needed to pass the class:
  • A grade of 80% or higher on each of the three projects. If you missed one of the first two projects or did not make this grade, but complete the rest of the course with passing grades, you will have the option of taking an Incomplete for the class and completing the missed project next Spring. A grade of over 80% on the final individual project is required to pass, and there will be no opportunities to make up that project if you don't make the necessary grade.
  • A grade of 35% or higher on the midterm. If your grade was below 35%, or you missed the midterm because of illness or other extenuating circumstances, you can take a second exam at the end of the semester to make up.
  • An average grade of 65% or higher on homework assignments. Your lowest HW will be dropped.
• Instead of a formal grade, we will provide each of you who planned to take the course for a grade with an individual performance report that:
  • (i) Summarizes your grades on each portion of the class, along with the average and standard deviation of grades for the overall class
  • (ii) Estimates your final grade based on the available data, with the following ranges: A; A/B borderline, B, B/C borderline, C. The grade will be estimated using your class rank, based on the following grading scheme:
    • Design projects #1 and #2 (mass launcher/predator prey; including peer evals) 10% each
    • Final design project 20%
    • Midterm exam: 20% (The end of semester 'repeat' exam grade will not be used in this calculation)
    • Homework Assignments (weighted equally, lowest grade dropped) 35%
    • Lecture attendance beween Feb 4 and March 3 (3 absences excused) 5%
  If you wish, we will upload this report to ASK as a formal course performance report. You can use the student section of the CPR to explain any circumstances such as illness, or restricted internet access, etc that might have prevented you from performing to your full potential in the class.
  
  Otherwise, the report is intended to recognize hard work and STEM skills it takes to do well in this class. And if you don't like the grade estimate you ended up with, you can just shred the document...
• S-Distinction grades will be awarded to those in the A and A/B borderline range. Distinctions do not appear on either internal or external transcripts, but are used by the registrar when determining eligibility for honors at graduation and for membership in some honor societies.

• If you originally elected to take the course for a grade your transcript will be annotated to show this.