Things to Do, in Order to Pass a Subject

1.Attend all lectures. This is very important. Practice shows that students who attend all lectures and laboratory exercises have about a 90% chance to pass, even if by birth they are inclined to learn somewhat slower than others. This is so, because during the face-to-face teaching process you are given all the necessary information you need to know in order to be deemed competent for this subject. Your mere presence at the lectures and the practical work almost guarantees your success. At the end, what will get you to the finish line is not the strong initial impetus, but the long lasting stamina, persistence and determination to succeed. These three qualities are much more important than any others. I have seen very clever students, who never graduate, because they constantly jump from one course to another or don’t have the patience to complete anything they have started. So, if you embark on a relatively long course, such as a two year Diploma or Advanced Diploma course, please make sure that you attend all lectures and keep doing so throughout the entire duration of the course.

2. Do your coursework on a regular basis. Please, follow your given schedule and make sure that you spend a few hours every week doing your coursework. If you notice that you have spent more than 15-20 minutes on a particular problem and you are still not able to find the solution, then leave it and start solving another one, which is easier for you. Attempt the difficult problem again on the following day. If after 20 minutes you are still unsure what the answer is, then leave it and start doing something else. Use your classroom notes. You may find that we have solved similar problems in class. If you still cannot work out the difficult problem after three attempts on three different days, then it is quite OK to come and ask me for assistance. Please show me what you have done so far and together we will find out what the root of the problem is. I am always happy to assist students, who have tried hard to solve a difficult problem by themselves, however they could not find the solution for one reason or another. What I dislike, are students who constantly seek help, without even attempting to solve the problems by themselves. Doing your coursework on a regular basis will help you to better prepare for the next lecture and you will learn much faster. If you procrastinate, your coursework will pile up and you will lag behind, until eventually you find yourself in great difficulty.

3. Do all your practical exercises. There are seven laboratory workshops (or simply ‘labs’) , which you need to complete for this unit. This is how you will be assessed for the practical component of this unit. In the beginning of the semester you will be given a dedicated lab book, containing all the practical work, which you need to complete. Most of it is building electrical circuits and confirming the theoretical calculations, by conducting practical electrical measurements. Before you commence your practical work, you will be given a multimeter (for DC Fundamentals subject), which is yours to keep. Please, don’t forget to bring it along for the days, when you are expected to conduct laboratory work. Usually one laboratory workshop is completed in one, sometimes in two consecutive weeks. The front page of your lab book contains seven empty boxes: one against each laboratory workshop. Upon the successful completion of each lab, I will place my signature in the corresponding box on the front page. I will only do that, if I am completely satisfied that you have fulfilled all the requirements for each lab. By the end of the semester you should have seven signatures at the front page. Please, make sure that you take good care of your lab book, as it is your proof of competency for the relevant practical sections. We, lecturers, do not keep copies of every students’ lab work. Therefore, if you lose your lab book, at the end of the semester you may have trouble proving that you have actually successfully completed all your labs. Hence, you may need to do them again.

It is in your best interest to attend all lab sessions, otherwise you will lag behind. Week 10 and week 20 of each semester are usually ‘catch-up’ weeks, dedicated specifically to students who missed a lab. In such a way they are given a second chance to complete it. Those allocated times are also utilised for conducting re-tests for students who did not achieve 70% or more on their first attempt of the written test. So, if at the end of a term you only have one outstanding lab, this is fine. However, if you missed more than one lab, then you may not be able to complete everything in one day and you may be in trouble. What that means is that in the worst case scenario there may be insufficient evidence that you have achieved competency in all required criteria. If this is the case, you may need to re-enrol and repeat some of the competency units again. The same applies to those who missed a lab and have to sit the test again. For these reasons, it is imperative that you do not miss classes (especially practical work). If you get sick or you have some other valid reasons to be absent, please come and talk to me as early as practically possible. I may be able to accommodate you in my flexible classes, so you can catch up on what you have missed out on. If you don’t do that and if you leave everything for the end of the semester, it may be too late.

4. Seriously prepare for your written tests. You need to achieve competency in both mid-semester and end-semester written tests. The mid-semester test is conducted in week 9, with a re-test in week 10. The end-semester test takes place in week 19, with a re-test in week 20. These are assessment weeks and no teaching is conducted during this time. You should turn up at the usual time and place, but instead of having a lecture or a lab, you will sit a test instead. Its duration is one hour and a half. The allocated time for the test is more than enough, provided you have attended all lectures, all labs and have done all your coursework. If you did all this, it is almost guaranteed that you will have no trouble at all. The actual test contains problems, which are extremely similar to those which we have been solving in class, or those which you have been working out yourself, as part of your coursework. You will not be expected to know anything over and above that material. If you successfully compete your test, present all your coursework and have done all your practical lab work you will be exempted to attend sessions in weeks 10 and 20. This means that you may have up to two extra weeks off in a semester. This incentive applies to only those students who are diligent and do everything on time. The rest should show up as usual and complete whatever still needs to be done.

There will be no surprises on the test, except possibly one slightly more difficult question for those who want to achieve an outstanding result of 100 %. The established pass-mark by the college is 70%. At the end of the day, however, the VET sector is competency based, which means that upon successful completion you simply receive a ‘CO’ status (competent). As an exception, some Universities would like to know the percentage grading of students, who apply for admission. For this reason we record percentages on our computer system, but they are not printed on your final academic record.

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What to Bring in Class

Please make sure that every time you come to D.C. Fundamentals or A.C. Fundamentals you will need to bring the following items:

1. The Floyd text book.

2. A notebook, dedicated to this subject, comprising of at least 120 pages, A4 format. You will need this book to take notes during lectures and solve problems during your class activities.

3. A scientific calculator. Please get into the habit to work with a scientific calculator during your class activities. If you forget it, sometimes you can get away by using your phone as a calculator. However, your phone can only save you in the beginning of the semester. As the material becomes progressively more difficult later on, you will increasingly rely on more “difficult” calculator functions, such as logarithm, square root, sin, cos, tan, complex numbers etc. Essentially you cannot rely on a phone calculator while studying A.C. Fundamentals. Devices with an Internet connection are not allowed on any of the tests. This particular model shown here, for example, is available at the Challenger bookstore and it is good for all purposes throughout your entire studies for this course.

4. A ruler. It doesn’t have to be a very long one. Just about 15 cm long will suffice.

5. A pen with multiple colour inks. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. The one shown on the photo is available at our bookstore and it only costs about a dollar or two. As you will see later on, when you start working on relatively complex circuits, you will need to label several currents and voltage drops in the same diagram. If you don’t have such a pen, your work will be messy and illegible, which in turn may attract a lower mark, or you will need to re-do the circuit again.

6. A pencil, a sharpener and an eraser. Sometimes in class you will be required to analyse electrical circuits for a certain amount of time. The learning process involves making mistakes and this is completely normal. Nobody expects you to get all the answers right on the first try. However, if you work with a pen and you make a mistake, it will be very difficult to correct it. Sometimes a liquid or a tape ‘white-out’ helps, but sometimes it makes things worse. So, in cases like this it makes sense to work with a pencil and have an eraser ready, so that you can quickly correct your work, if you need to. You may wish to combine everything in a pencil case, like the one shown here. Just make sure that you do not leave it behind in the classroom. It makes sense to write your name on it. Otherwise, if you forget it, I will have to add it to my ever increasing collection of students’ lost items :)

At this point you may wonder why is so much stationary needed? It is all quite simple. We use multiple modes of delivery. Sometimes, a topic can be thoroughly explained with a YouTube video clip, sometimes I need to draw diagrams for you on the board and show you how to solve them, yet at other times I will insist that you write down certain things in your notebooks. Practice shows that short dictations greatly increase student’s capacity to learn and vastly improve their understanding of the subject. The process of writing down information goes a long way towards memorizing it! Humans remember much more when they write things down with a penand paper, rather than typing it on a computer keyboard, or simply reading it from a screen. Not only, will the final result of your writing be more personalised, but having such notes will help you enormously later on, when you are preparing for your final exams. While reading your own notes, you will remember a lot of auxiliary information that has been said in class.

7. Your digital multimeter. Those who are enrolled in D.C. Fundamentals class will be assigned a personal multimeter, similar to the one shown here, which is yours to keep. Please, don’t forget to bring it along for the days, when you are expected to perform electrical measurements, as part of your laboratory work. Usually, in the first three or four weeks we only cover the basics of theory, in order to introduce you to the subject. After this we gradually begin to do more practical work. In the second term, emphasis is placed on practicals, so you will need to bring your multimeter every week. The multimeter is not needed for A.C. Fundamentals classes, except for the practical workshop number 4: ‘RC Time Constants’. Please, refer to your schedule to see which week this lab is conducted.

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Things to do in order to pass this unit with ease