Tuolumne Meadows as seen from Pothole Dome in Yosemite National Park, California. Photo by Vince Cronin.
Homepage: Cronin's The Dynamic Earth
This page functions as the course syllabus, and is not a contract. It is revised frequently throughout the semester.
Reload this page in your browser every time you visit this page to be certain that you are reading the most current course information
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Baylor University syllabus statements are incorporated by reference in this document, and are available for you to download and read HERE
How To Contact Dr. Cronin
email: Vince_Cronin@baylor.edu
mobile, for text or voice: listed on the "lecture"-course homepage on Canvas.
Only contact me on my mobile device between 8 AM and 8 PM Central Time, and only if it is an important question/issue related to this course.
How To Contact Your Graduate Teaching Assistant
Zhao (Amanda) Wang, Tuesday at 12:30 — 2:25 PM and 2:40 — 4:35 PM, (Sections Geo 1405-A and -B), email: Zhao_Wang1@baylor.edu
Zequn Wu, Wednesday at 12:20 — 2:15 PM and 2:30 — 4:25 PM, (Sections Geo 1405-C and -D), email: Zequn_Wu1@baylor.edu
Sanjukta Dhar, Wednesday at 4:40 — 6:35 PM and Thursday at 12:30 — 2:25 PM, (Sections Geo 1405-E and -F), email: Sanjukta_Dhar1@baylor.edu
About This Course
This course will be held entirely online. Because online Baylor courses often include students on different continents and many different time zones, it is most convenient to structure this as a largely asynchronous course, meaning that each of us will be working on various elements of the course at different times. The only regularly scheduled events will be
- optional office hours at 4-5 PM Central Time weekdays (unless otherwise notified), when you can interact with Dr. Cronin via video conference using Microsoft Teams, and
- laboratory meetings, which begin at their regularly scheduled times and occur via video conference using Microsoft Teams.
The days and times when various quizzes, homework, and lab work are due will be indicated through this syllabus.
Both the "lecture" and the laboratory parts of this course are designed as "flipped" learning experiences. It is the teacher's responsibility to organize work that a student is assigned to do. Student learning occurs primarily through working through the assignments. The teachers are there to provide guidance and assistance upon request, and Dr. Cronin is available daily for consultation, either via email, his mobile phone (for text or conversation), or optional office hours (every weekday afternoon at 4 PM CT unless otherwise notified) via video conference using Microsoft Teams.
Purpose Of This Course
This course is an attempt to explore and summarize the best scientific understanding of Earth's ~4.6 billion year age, evolution, composition, and major dynamic systems, as that understanding exists in the geoscience community based on published peer-reviewed scientific literature. We want you to become literate with respect to the Earth sciences.
Weekly Workflow
The Laboratory Is A Required Part Of This Course
- Lab meetings begin January 26-28.
- Laboratory assignments are included in the links in the course schedule, below.
- Students who do not complete and submit at least 75% of the assigned laboratory activities will automatically receive an F as their course grade.
- The laboratory assignments are embedded with the links to assignments in the table below.
- The completed laboratory activities assigned below must be submitted via the Canvas learning management system (LMS) before 11:59 PM Central Time on the day after your laboratory section is scheduled to meet (e.g., due before Wednesday night at 11:59 PM for a lab scheduled on Tuesday). Instructions for submitting your lab work are provided HERE.
- No credit will be given to any response that is difficult or impossible for a graduate teaching assistant to read or interpret. In order for a response to receive credit, it must be clear and correct. It is the student's responsibility to review any PDF document submitted for credit to be certain that all of the responses are clear and easily legible
- The end-of-lab quiz must be completed via the Canvas LMS before 11:59 PM Central Time on the day after the day on which your laboratory section is scheduled to meet (e.g., due before Thursday night at 11:59 PM for a lab scheduled on Tuesday).
- The original paper copies of all of your completed lab assignments must be submitted (and received by Dr. Cronin) by the end of the day on May 3, 2021. More information about this requirement will be provided later in the semester. In the mean time, save all of your original paper copies of your completed lab assignments so you can submit them to Professor Cronin as required.
"Mastering Geology" Is A Required Part Of This Course
A number of online exercises (homework, study modules, quizzes) are scheduled for you to complete in Mastering Geology accessed through the
Canvas
learning management system (LMS). All of them are graded in some way, and all have some sort of due date that is posted on the calendar you can access via Mastering Geology.
To register for Mastering Geology, read and follow the directions provided on the PDF document
https://croninprojects.org/Vince/Course/PhysGeol/Student-Reg-Instruct-Spring2021.pdf and follow the links embedded in that document.
To get to Mastering Geology after you have logged in to
Canvas
, select the Geo 1405 course you are enrolled in, then select
MyLab and Mastering
along the left column. This should connect you to Mastering Geology at Pearson.
If you need any further clarification of this list of required resources, you can email, text, or call Professor Cronin.
Except for valid University excuses
with written documentation
(e.g., illness, bereavement, athletic, performance),
there will be no re-setting of the online assignment deadlines to accommodate people who missed them this semester.
If you miss the due date, you will not be able to make-up the exercises for credit.
Course Schedule
Course Topics and Links to Assignments
The schedule is subject to revision. Reload this page in your browser to be certain that you are viewing the most current information.
The referenced textbook is Earth by Tarbuck and others (see full reference below).
Required Textbooks And Online Resources
| You must acquire the following resources and be ready to work with them
before the first day of the Spring semester (January 19). |
|
AGI/NAGT Laboratory Manual in Physical Geology, 12th edition (YOU NEED THE PAPER VERSION) Print Lab Manual ISBN: 9780135836972
And yes, this edition is significantly different (and better, in my humble opinion) than the previous edition that was used in the 2019-2020 academic year at Baylor.
|
|
Modified Mastering Geology with eText for Tarbuck et al., Earth 13th edition*
This version of Mastering Geology is used within the Canvas LMS.
—————
*Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology, 13th Edition, 2020, by E.J. Tarbuck, F.K. Lutgens, and S. Linneman, with illustrations by D.G. Tasa: New York, Pearson Higher Education, 754 p.
|
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You can acquire these resources either from the Baylor Bookstore or by ordering them directly from Pearson Higher Education, using the instructions provided by Pearson (and modified by Dr. Cronin) available at https://croninprojects.org/Vince/Course/PhysGeol/Student-Reg-Instruct-Spring2021.pdf .
You Do Not need to acquire a paper version of the Tarbuck book, unless you really really want to, because the Mastering Geology online resource specified above comes with the eText of the Tarbuck textbook.
If you need any further clarification of this list of required resources, you can email, text, or call Professor Cronin. His phone number was given in an announcement published through Canvas
About Quizzes
In addition to the questions you will need to answer within Mastering Geology each week, you will take two quizzes: an end-of-lab quiz based on the lab activities that were assigned that week, and an end-of-topic quiz that incorporates information from all of the assignments (texts, videos, lab activities) for that topic
- Quizzes for this course will all be administered through LockDown Browser in Canvas.
- You will be able to take each quiz at any time during a 2-day time window.
- You will have one attempt to take the quiz, and it will have a time limit (usually about 40 minutes).
- It is highly recommended that you take the quiz at your earliest convenience after it becomes available. Do Not Begin A Quiz Within A Half Hour of When It Is Due. If you miss taking the quiz within the time window allocated for it, that quiz grade will be a zero.
If you fail to complete a quiz during the 2-day period you have been allocated to complete that task, Dr. Cronin would like to be the first to tell you how very sorry he is that your grade will be diminished by that missing grade. Furthermore, he wants you to know (or learn, if you don't already know) how very important deadlines are.
- You must take the quiz by yourself, without any other human being observing or assisting you. It is intended to measure your understanding personally, not the composite understanding of any group of people. Cheating is beneath your dignity.
- Unless otherwise specified in the quiz instructions, every quiz in this course is a closed-book, closed-notes, no-electronic-aids quiz. Cheating is beneath your dignity.
- The contents of the quizzes are confidential and copyrighted (© 2020 by Vince Cronin), so you may not duplicate, share or distribute any part of the quiz contents to others in any form (verbally, in photographs, in screen shots, in transcriptions, etc.) Helping others to cheat is dishonest and reprehensible.
About Accessing Your Grades
Grades in the main part of this course are accessed through the Canvas account associated with the "lecture" section. Grades for the lab part of the course are accessed through the Canvas account for each specific lab section, and are posted by the corresponding graduate teaching assistant.
Credit Distribution for Grading
Tentatively, the raw percentage grade in this course will be based on the following approximate weighting:
|
Mastering Geology online Dynamic Study Modules and Homework
|
20% |
| Lab work (lab activities, end-of-lab quizzes) |
25% |
| Topic quizzes (one given after each topic) & final-exam |
50% |
| Occasional homework outside of Mastering Geology, and submission of all original paper copies of completed lab assignments (due by May 3) |
10% |
|
Raw percentage grade
|
100%
|
The weightings presented above might change before the end of the semester. Remember, this syllabus is not a contract.
Final Course Grade
For students who complete and submit at least 75% of the assigned lab activities, the final course percentage grade will be determined using an equation like the following:
Final course percentage grade = {A + B + (C x [1.0 - (A + B)])}, where
-
A
is the raw grade as computed above,
-
B
is an optional translation factor (a positive number or zero) chosen by Professor Cronin, and
-
C
is an optional compression factor (a positive number or zero) chosen by Professor Cronin.
Professor Cronin determines the values of the translation and compression factors, and the same factors are used for all students in the course. Standard rounding procedures used throughout science will be employed in the conversion of decimal percentages to integer percentages. Based on the final course percentage grade, letter grades are assigned as follows:
| Final Course Percentage |
Letter Grade |
| 93% to 100% inclusive |
A |
| 90% to 92% inclusive |
A- |
| 87% to 89% inclusive |
B+ |
| 83% to 86% inclusive |
B |
| 80% to 82% inclusive |
B- |
| 77% to 79% inclusive |
C+ |
| 73% to 76% inclusive |
C |
| 70% to 72% inclusive |
C- |
| 67% to 69% inclusive |
D+ |
| 60% to 66% inclusive |
D |
| below 60% |
F |
Academic Success
I have high academic expectations for you in my course.
If you find yourself struggling academically, you should consider seeking assistance through the Paul L. Foster Success Center in Sid Richardson (
www.baylor.edu/successcenter/
).
While I am here to facilitate your learning, responsibility for your learning is yours alone. You will need to commit yourself to taking the time necessary to study and to take care of your mental and physical health by getting enough sleep, exercise, and good food every day. There are many distractions during the summertime, but it is your responsibility to fulfill your most important responsibility — to learn.
If you have any questions or comments about this site or its contents, drop an email to the humble webmaster.
All of the original content of this website is © 2021 by Vincent S. Cronin
