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Phy 202
Your 'question form' report has been received. Scroll down through the document to see any comments I might have inserted, and my final comment at the end.
** Question Form_labelMessages **
Q_re_further_labs_-_second_try
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Your initial response to my question about substitute/alternative labs, deferring a full response until you graded/reviewed other work, asked me to let you know if the full later response wasn't posted along with your initial response. A different response was posted as part of the same reply, and although I waited for a day or so to see whether along with could include shortly after, it doesn't appear to have been posted at all.
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What I do understand about the situation:
- In your initial reply to my question about substitute labs, you wrote I'm going to defer my response until I've finished responding to other work received today. Having completed that I'll be better able to focus my attention on the task. [line breaks] If that response doesn't post along with this one, be sure to let me know.
- The response that posted along with this initial reply, however, was your response to my question about the lab materials (Let me know if you didn't get my email. I wasn't able to coordinate with the bookstore today as they close early, but will do so Monday.). This response appears to have posted twice: Page http://vhcc2.vhcc.edu/dsmith/geninfo/labrynth_created_fall_05/levl1_04/levl2_40/file3_945.htm features two consecutive links to http://vhcc2.vhcc.edu/dsmith/geninfo/labrynth_created_fall_05/levl1_04/levl2_40/07-13-2012_____question_form.htm. My guess is that your reply-posting program assigned the same default title to both responses because they were submitted and/or replied to the same day, with the effect that the second response either a) saved over the first, with the effect that two links were created but both led to the second file or b) was rejected by the system because it would have saved over the first, with the effect that two links were created but both led to the first file. For what it's worth, I make sure to give each question a different filename; it appears that the system uses its own default title for the reply no matter what, with the likely effect that of multiple responses posted on the same day, only one will succeed in going through to the work-review page.
What I don't understand about the situation:
- Why the saving over or failure to save happened the way it did, although that isn't as important for practical purposes as learning what your response to my question about the labs was
- What your full response would have been if it had come through
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This question is for practical purposes a repeat of my previous question whose answer the system seems to have erased, namely what I should do about substitute labs for the remainder of the course.
Thanks!
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For Waves and Optics you can if you wish do the experiments outlined at
http://vhcc2.vhcc.edu/dsmith/forms/ph2_waves_and_optics_honors.htm
Regarding your materials for the electricity labs, I went today to the bookstore and set aside the following:
capacitor-generator set
meter
laser pointer
which along with the materials in your package will suffice for the remainder of the course.
Eva, the assistant manager, is the person you'll want to talk to.
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I'm not sure what happened to the posting, but I don't think I can blame it on my program, which does exactly what I tell it to do, for years on end, without an exception that I can recall. I don't usually misuse the program (I wrote the program and when I mess up I usually modify the program to make it harder for me to do so), but my best guess is that I did so in this case.
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Phy 202
Your 'question form' report has been received. Scroll down through the document to see any comments I might have inserted, and my final comment at the end.
** Question Form_labelMessages **
Q_re_test_ctr_-_fairly_urgent
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When I spoke today with Ms. Deborah Brown, Testing Center Manager at Tidewater Community College's Portsmouth Branch (ddbrown@tcc.edu, 757-822-2720), she informed me of the following:
1) After I contacted her on July 11 to schedule the test for today (July 16) and gave you her contact information via the Proctor Information Form, she received an email from you that included some kind of instructions about how to administer the test, but it didn't include a test, and no accompanying test was sent by any separate means (e.g., fax).
2) Ms. Brown then emailed to you a reply in which she asked you to send the test material. (I believe that she sent this reply email on Thursday or Friday; she telephoned me to let me know that she'd heard something from you but that she needed more, namely the test itself, and had emailed you to ask you for it.)
3) She hasn't yet received the test material itself or any other kind of response to her message of Thursday/Friday.
I've rescheduled Test 1 for Wednesday, July 18, at 5:00 PM, to give the two of you a bit more time to coordinate and make sure that the test material gets through.
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What I do understand about the situation:
- See above description; the only things I understand are what I've listed there.
What I do not understand about the situation:
- What information or actions you need from her in order to be able to send her the test material
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Would you please a) email or otherwise send the test material to her, b) telephone her to let her know that you've done so, and c) send me an email to the same effect? If there's some kind of barrier to your doing so, would you let me know of anything I can do to help this process go through?
Thanks again!
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I've received only one communication from Ms. Brown, regarding another student. I believe they received information for both you and the other student at about the same time, hence the potential for confusion.
Her response regarding that student indicated that their center could only proctor online tests.
If this is the case it presents a complication that might take a couple more days to resolve.
I can understand how a combination of manpower limitations during times of budgetary stress, combined with high demand, could lead to the policy she described. So in no way do I fault Ms. Brown or her center for a situation they didn't create. However I don't think it's possible to properly test a mathematics of physics course by anything other than constructed solutions. It wouldn't be difficult to administer these tests by computer, but transcribing written solutions would be a burden I'd rather not place on students. I'll need to think this through and try to come to some resolution within the next day or so.
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