Instructor: Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Room: Centreville 1216 Office Hours: M 2-4 pm, or by appointment
Phone: (301) 405-4084, Email: tholtz@umd.edu
This course uses clickers. Please make certain that you either have access to an RF-LCD clicker or that you obtain a license to use ResponseWare with your web-accessible device (laptop, smart phone, Blackberry, etc.). Also, make certain you register your clicker before class begins.
It is your responsibility as a student to completely read through and understand this syllabus. If you have questions about it, please contact Dr. Holtz. You will be held responsible for following all requirements of this syllabus.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of the semester, every student should be able to:
Course Organization: 3 meetings per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), 1 laboratory per week (Wednesday.
Field Trip: 1 non-mandatory field trip is planned:
Grade:
| Grade | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Online Exam 1: | 15% |
| Online Exam 2: | 15% |
| Online Exam 3: | 15% |
| Final Exam: | 15% |
| Labs: | 20% |
| Lab Exam 1: | 5% |
| Lab Exam 2: | 5% |
| Clicker Quizzes: | 10% |
Grade Scale: 90+, A; 80-89, B; 70-79, C; 60-69, D; <60, F. "+" and "-" grades are given to the top and bottom two-point range, respectively, within each grade.
Online Exams: Rather than sit-down exams during course time, there will be three online exams throughout the semester (independent of the final exam). For each of these there will be a section comprised of true/false, multiple choice, matching, and similar type questions (totaling between 60-80% of the points, depending on the exam) and a series of short essay questions (totaling the remaining 20-40%). These exams will be open-note, but they ARE subject to the Honor Pledge: you may not seek help from other people in doing these. The questions, their orders, and answers are randomized, so no two student's exams will be identical.
You will have a period of 5 days (Monday through Friday) in which to complete the exam. You may only take it once. Since these are accessible on the web, there NO EXCUSES for missing them (including illness; travel due to sports, band, etc.; and so forth). Failure to correctly submit the exam on ELMS during the time period results in a 0 for that exam. Each exam covers the material from the previous exam (or the start of the course, for the first exam) until the week immediately before the exam.
The exam schedule is:
Final Exam: There will be a traditional, sit-down final exam during the regularly scheduled exam season. It is cumulative for the entire course.
Participation/Clicker Quizzes: An essential element of education in general is attending lectures and reflecting on the information provided there. In order to help guide this reflection and understanding, a series of clicker quizzes and surveys will be presented during the class. These will not be announced in advance, and may occur at anytime in any given lecture. Not every lecture will have a clicker quiz, but some may have more than one. You are expected to be present and ready to answer the clicker quizzes and surveys whenever they are offered (sometimes more than once in a given lecture). Prior to Feb. 5 (the last day of Add/Drop) the quizzes will not count to the final course grade; following that point quizzes (although not surveys) will be graded. The grades are based on the summed total for that day's quizzes. The lowest three day's grades will be automatically dropped: this is the method by which absences due to illness, travel, University sports activity, etc., will be dealt.
Clicker quizzes are goverened by the Honor Code: if you were to answer for another person on a clicker quiz (or similar case of cheating), you will be dealt with accordingly. However, there will be cases when you are asked to discuss the question with those seated near you before answering.
Required Texts: Earth System History. Third Edition. by Steven M. Stanley (2009, W.H. Freeman) ISBN-13 978-1-4292-0520-7
Deciphering Earth History: Exercises in Historical Geology. Fourth Edition (DEH) by R.A. Gastaldo, C.E. Savdra, and R.D. Lewis (2006, CPC Publishing) ISBN-13 978-0898923162
Recommended Text: Maryland's Geology. Second Edition. by Martin F. Schmidt, Jr. (2010, Schiffer Publishers) ISBN-13 978-0764335938
Websites:
The University of Maryland is one of a small number of universities with a student-administered Honors Code and an Honors Pledge, available on the web at http://www.jpo.umd.edu/aca/honorpledge.html. The code prohibits students from cheating on exams, plagiarizing papers, submitting the same paper for credit in two courses without authorization, buying papers, submitting fraudulent documents, and forging signatures. The University Senate encourages instructors to ask students to write the following signed statement on each examination or assignment: "I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this examination (or assignment)."
Academic Accommodations: If you have a documented disability, you should contact Disability Support Services 0126 Shoemaker Hall. Each semester students with documented disabilities should apply to DSS for accommodation request forms which you can provide to your professors as proof of your eligibility for accommodations. The rules for eligibility and the types of accommodations a student may request can be reviewed on the DSS web site at http://www.counseling.umd.edu/DSS/receiving_serv.html.
Religious Observances: The University System of Maryland policy provides that students should not be penalized because of observances of their religious beliefs, students shall be given an opportunity, whenever feasible, to make up within a reasonable time any academic assignment that is missed due to individual participation in religious observances. It is the responsibility of the student to inform the instructor of any intended absences for religious observances in advance. Notice should be provided as soon as possible but no later than the end of the schedule adjustment period (February 5). Faculty should further remind students that prior notification is especially important in connection with final exams, since failure to reschedule a final exam before the conclusion of the final examination period may result in loss of credits during the semester. The problem is especially likely to arise when final exams are scheduled on Saturdays.
Attendance: Regular attendance and participation in this class and lab is the best way to grasp the concepts and principles being discussed. However, in the event that a class must be missed due to an illness, the policy in this class is as follows:
Absences from the final exam will not be excused except for those causes approved by University policy (see the appropriate section of the UMCP Undergraduate Catalog). Only those students excused for these causes will be eligible for a make-up exam.
Other: Much of the information presented is not available in the textbook. If you cannot make a certain lecture, try and find another student who might lend your their notes. (In fact, establishing a study group early in the course has proven useful for many students in the past).
In cases of inclement weather or other unexpected emergencies, the University may close. Please consult the University main webpage or call 301-405-7669 (SNOW) to confirm such cancellations. Dr. Holtz will contact students via ELMS in order to inform them concerning delays of due dates for projects to be handed in or for exams: typically these will be shifted until the next available class date.
Keep up with the required readings! Although the format of the lectures and the chapters do not always match, the readings are important as well. Some of the material to be tested is covered in more detail in the readings than in class.
Readings should be done prior to the classtime they are listed.
Course Evaluations: CourseEvalUM will be open for students to complete their evaluations for Spring 2013 courses between Tuesday, April 23, and Friday, May 10. Students can go directly to the website to complete their evaluations, beginning April 23. You will be alerted about these dates and provided more information closer to that time, and students will be alerted via their official University e-mail account.
Students who complete evaluations for all of their courses in the previous semester (excluding summer), can access the posted results via Testudo's CourseEvalUM Reporting link for any course on campus that has at least a 70% response rate. You can find more information, including periodic updates, at the IRPA course evaluation website.
The expectation is that all students will complete these. This is YOUR chance to anonymously evaluate this class: please use this opportunity!
Copyright: © 2013 Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. as to this syllabus and all lectures. Students are prohibited from copying and selling course materials, from selling lecture notes, and from being paid to take lecture notes without the express written permission of the professor teaching this course.
For a formatted printable copy of the complete syllabus, click here.