Course
Syllabus for Math 132 –FALL 2008
Finite Math 132 (3 credit hours)
Call Number: 47141 for the section meeting Monday/Wednesday at 12:30 – 1:50
47143 for the section meeting Monday/Wednesday at 4:30 – 5:50
Description: Topics include symbolic logic, set theory, and probability theory applied to the analysis of business and social science problems. Prerequisites: Math 124 or Math 126 or Math 128 all with a grade of C or better; or a satisfactory ACT/SAT Placement Test Score.
Instructor: Gary Cohen
Text: Finite Mathematics and its applications, 9th ed. By Goldstein, Schneider and Siegel
When and where this course meets: Building C on the West Charleston Campus, room C276, Mon/Wed from 12:30 – 1:50 for section 47141 and the same room for section 17143 meeting on Mon/Wed. from 4:30-5:50.
Office hours and location: My office is located on the West Charleston Campus in Building H, first floor, room H101. Tel: 651-5812
Office hours this semester will be announced in class.
Email: gary.cohen@csn.edu
My faculty web-site
can be found at http://www.nevada.edu/~coheng
You are required to go to my website, print out a hard
copy of the entire syllabus and bring it to me, so I can see you have it, and so
I can check off in my grade book that you have received the syllabus. You will be issued a grade of F for the
course, if you have failed to do this before the first exam is given. You cannot be in this course if you have not
read all the policies, procedures and expectations.
TEXTBOOK: Finite Mathematics by Goldstein/Schneider/Siegel, Ninth edition.
PREREQUISITES: At least math 96 but a higher math course
such as 124 or 126 or equivalent are strongly
recommended. I suggest that if you did not
earn at least a C grade in math 124 or 126 (or its equivalent, wherever you
took it) that you retake that course before attempting to take this course
(this one is harder) – This course
presumes that students have the ability and maturity to independently read
material from the lecture notes without having to be hand held through each
step of each problem. This is a harder course than math 96 and
will require a greater degree of independence in the learning process than is
presumed in math 96. This is not a
“hand-holding course”. This course
focuses a great deal on concept and is not intended to be a course primarily
about “memorized methodology”. You
cannot memorize your way through this course – understanding is the main
objective. Please also be aware that
some sections may be much more challenging than others, so the pace of the
course is uneven.
ATTENDANCE and RELATED ISSUES: Students are expected to attend class regularly and be punctual. Students who find themselves in the position of having to miss numerous classes should withdraw and take the course when regular on-time attendance is possible. This course was not designed with the occasional attendee in mind. Each lecture covers a heavy dose of material – the lectures do not follow the book (some of the lectures may be on topics not even covered in the textbook or in any standard text), so attending the lecture is absolutely critical in order to keep up and not find yourself lost in class. If you miss a lecture, then in order to avoid being lost in the class, my best advice is to get the notes from a classmate who takes decent notes. I do not provide written lecture notes for students who miss lecture.
Anyone arriving late for a test/quiz/exam will automatically lose 10 percentage points on that test/quiz/exam – No exceptions. If you arrive late for a test of quiz, you will be asked to wait in the hallway for a minute or two until I am able to come out in the hall and tell you exactly what materials you need to take out, give you scratch paper, give you a chance to ask any questions you have about the testing procedure, etc.
If I am in the process of giving verbal instructions to the class or handing out tests, you will have to wait until I finish that process. You will not be allowed to come in during the middle of this.
This procedure is to minimize disturbance to the rest of
the class and is not a punishment.
Do not argue with me about whether or not you were
late. Anytime after the test has been
announced (even if that is just one second) as having begun, you are late at
any time after that.
Course Outcomes:
Solve systems of equations
via matrix methods
Perform arithmetic of
matrices
Apply matrix methods to solve
problems of social science
Solve linear programming problems
Construct Venn Diagrams
Learn to apply basic
principles of counting including combinations and permutations.
Solve elementary probability
problems
Explore the binomial and
normal distributions
Investigate the mathematics
of finance
GRADING:
There will be 4 in-class exams in the course (including the
final exam). The last of these exams is
the final exam and is cumulative over all the material in the course, although
the last part of the course will most likely be stressed more heavily than
earlier parts that were already tested.
The first three exams will be roughly equally spaced over the course and
each in-class test/exam will be
announced at least two class periods in advance. Please do not ask me when
the exams are – I do not plan precise exam dates far in advance. You will know when I announce it to the
entire class. You are expected to attend
every class period. Exams will be
announced about 1 week in advance.
Therefore it is important that you do not plan to miss any of the class
periods or you may find yourself not knowing about an exam date!
Your final course grade is determined from the following weighting of grades:
Test #1 20%
Test #3 20%
Final Exam 20%
Pop Quizzes – 20%
The number of quizzes will not be determined in advance, but
typically there would be around 6 or 7 of them at least. Please do not ask me on a given day whether
or not we will have a quiz – “Pop” means surprise! These may occur at any time during any given
class period. Some may be in the
beginning and some may be at the end. If
you leave and miss a quiz, it’s possible you may not even realize a quiz was
given until you receive your final grade for the course!
If I give any of the tests
as take-home tests, then those tests MUST be done –skipping them is not an
option.
There are no make-up exams in this course. If you miss the first exam, then your final exam automatically will be counted for 40% (instead of 20%) of your total course grade. As already stated above, you do not, however, have the option to miss any take home exams that may be given.
If you miss a class,
it is your responsibility to get a copy of any assignments/handouts that were
distributed during the missed class as well as the class notes. I may or may not have a copy of what you need
with me the next class period (I probably will not). Therefore you may need to rely on
photocopying the handouts from another student in order to be able to hand in
the work by the required deadline. You
will not be given extra time to complete the work, regardless of whether or not
I have what you need when you need it.
This I view as the student responsibility –not mine. I do not re-give lectures to
students who miss a class, so getting
notes from a classmate will be critical.
Do not ask me to not count an exam after you already took it –
everything you do will be counted. If
you choose to miss the first exam, that’s your business, but do not ask me to
pretend you never showed up for it and count your final for 40% - I will not do
that. You are not permitted to miss the
final exam. Missing the final exam
constitutes sufficient grounds for giving a student an automatic “F” in the
course.
The basic grading scale for all work in the course will be:
90-100% A
80-89% B
70-79% C
60-69 D
Below 60% F
+/- scores (such as B+ or C-) will be determined within the above broader grade categories when I assign final grades. When calculating grades, rounding up is done only for scores at least halfway between two whole numbers (so 84.5 would be rounded up to 85 but 84.4 would be rounded to 84).
Calculators: You may use scientific or graphing
calculators on tests, including the final exam, except in those cases in which
it is specifically announced prior to handing out the test/quiz that you may
not. You are responsible for learning how to use your own calculator – I
will not answer questions regarding how to use your specific calculator during
quizzes/tests/final exam. If you do
not have a graphing calculator and choose to purchase one, I recommend the
TI-85 or TI-86. I am most familiar with
these two models. If you choose to use
another type of calculator, I will not be able to help you in learning to use
it, as different models often work in very different ways. I DO NOT LEND OUT MY
CALCULATOR TO STUDENTS WHO FORGET TO BRING THEIR OWN FOR TESTS/FINAL EXAM. I do not allow students to share a calculator
on tests/quizzes/final exams, so if you want to use one, then be sure to bring
your own and know how to use it. You may
also want to bring an extra set of good batteries just in case the ones in your
calculator fail during the test. I do
not lend out my calculator to students.
The overall calculator philosophy that shall be adopted for this course can perhaps be summarized by the following points:
1. Calculators are valuable tools that should be used as such to make doing math less tedious. However, their usage in this course should not replace an understanding of the basic mathematical principles taught.
2. I am not interested in spending class time teaching the calculator. Everyone has a different model and they do not always work the same way – especially with regard to some of the more advanced features...therefore, you are responsible for learning how to use your own calculator. In general, for most of the topics, I do not want you to use the fancier calculator features that would give you an answer without showing me the basic steps of the logical reasoning. Even when you use a calculator, you are still responsible for providing me with a coherent and detailed explanation of the logical mathematical steps you used in solving a given problem. I will let you know of any exceptions to this as the course progresses.
3. Since calculators/computers can do a lot of calculations fast, sometimes this allows one to explore finding interesting patterns that you may have otherwise not noticed by long tedious hand-calculation...
This is a realistic way in which people sometimes use technology in the research world –it can be fun, challenging and rewarding. However, a calculator should never be used as a crutch or a replacement for an actual understanding of basic mathematical principles.
Homework:
You are responsible for doing all the required homework after each lecture, regardless of whether or not I specifically remember to tell you to do it (just assume you should start working on whichever homework is related to the last lecture immediately, unless you are told not to). Do not let yourself get behind in the homework. This is a fast moving course and you will find it hard to catch up if you put off assignments until later. I will provide many examples in lecture which serve to illustrate how to solve problems – however, on account of time limitations, this course will not be one in which a large number of homework problems are worked out in lecture- if a problem gives you great difficulty, you are welcome to come to office hours to discuss it. Sometimes I may provide written solution handouts for many of the homework problems. The homework is your opportunity to learn from your mistakes, but your course grade will reflect the end result only – how well you are able to perform on the final exam/tests. A part of many class periods will be devoted to going over a few of the homework problems (there is never enough time to do enough really, unfortunately)- if you do not come to class having done the homework, you will not be able to derive the full benefit of the homework. Generally speaking, when I provide an opportunity to ask questions related to a given homework assignment, we will deal with those questions just once in class –then we will move on to new material. If you get behind, I may not be willing to spend class time going over previous homework assignments that were already covered during previous class periods – there is simply not enough time for that. Thus keeping up with the pace of the course is of paramount importance.
Showing your work: Always show all work. Sometimes I may give more partial credit than other times (sometimes I may be generous and other times I may not give much partial credit – depending on the nature of the topic and the kinds of quiz/exam questions), but unless it is explicitly stated to the contrary, you are required to show all work in a well-presented organized manner in order to be eligible to receive credit. When grading, I usually go by the principle: “little work receives little or no credit, regardless of whether the answer is right or not.” Being able to clearly show/explain how you arrived at your answer is something I consider to be an essential part of what a college educated person is able to do. Many of you will probably never find the inverse of a matrix or solve a linear programming problem or compute a probability using the binomial theorem in your job....but what you will have to do is articulately explain how you arrived at your conclusions, whatever they may be, for the given project on which you are working. In this sense, learning to show work and explain in a clear way is even more important than the specifics of the math itself. Using correct notation is imperative. Ambiguous/unclear or incorrectly stated answers may not receive credit.
Withdraw/Incompletes:
Note: If you quit attending and do not officially withdraw by the deadline, you will receive an F. I will not issue grades of W or I on account of poor course performance, so if you need to withdraw, be sure to do it in the proper way – this is a student responsibility, not a teacher responsibility. Incompletes will be issued only under very unusual circumstances. If it is determined that a student needs to receive an incomplete (incompletes are extremely rare and usually only for verifiable medical emergencies), the student will be required to make up the remaining course work on a schedule agreed upon between student and instructor –I will only give incompletes that can be made up in not more than a couple weeks from the end of the course.
The final exam will be cumulative in nature and will be
based primarily on the totality of all work given in the course (so you would
be very wise to save all returned tests in a notebook and make sure you can do
all problems that you missed). THE TESTS/REQUIRED HOMEWORK ARE YOUR STUDY
GUIDE FOR THE FINAL EXAM – nothing will be a decent substitute for studying
your past tests/homework/quizzes and class notes!!! Additionally, you may be asked some
questions on the final exam that are similar to homework problems that have
been assigned but not yet tested. You
may also be asked some questions that are conceptually related to material
covered, but not the same as any previously assigned problem type. Such questions test conceptual understanding,
rather than just the ability to mimic.
ACADEMIC HONESTY:
Cheating, plagiarism and other acts
of academic dishonesty are considered to be very serious offenses at CSN. Any student involved in such activity may be
reported to the administration for disciplinary action. Penalties may range from receiving zeros on
quizzes/tests to failing the course to being expelled from the college. You are expected to have read and understood
the current issue of the student handbook regarding student responsibilities
and rights and the intellectual property policy for information about what
constitutes acceptable behavior on campus.
Scholastic dishonesty will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to
the fullest extent.
CLASSROOM CONDUCT: Any behavior deemed disruptive or counter productive to the educational goals of the class will be grounds for removal of a student from the class. Repetition of such an offense may result in expulsion from the course.
Please be aware that
talking to your classmates while I am lecturing is disruptive to other students
in the class and to me. Often
students do not realize that even chatting in the back of the room can be heard
in the first row near the chalkboard.
Therefore I urge each student to respect others in the class by saving
conversations for appropriate times (before class, after class, during breaks
and in class group activities). If I get the impression that there is
talking over me while I am lecturing, I may take this as a sign that the class
is bored and decide that the time for a pop quiz is ripe. If I ask you to stop talking to a classmate
during lecture, then the next time you have to be asked to stop talking, I may
ask you to move to another seat of my choice, not yours. If there is any disrespect toward me and
uncooperativeness in following the policies, then I may take official action to
remove the disruptive student from the class per the official school policy at
CSN for removing a disruptive student.
This may include but is not limited to calling campus police to remove
the disruptive student during lecture.
All cell phone usage is banned in the classroom. This includes talking on the phone, listening
to voice mail, reading and sending text messages and using your cell phone as a
calculator or for any other purpose during all tests and quizzes. Cell phones should be put away during
lecture.
Students with medical, psychological, learning or other disabilities
desiring academic adjustments, accommodations or auxiliary aids will need to
contact the
The
Finding out your
final course Grade: I do not post grades for reasons of protecting
individual privacy of all students (and also because I just choose not to) –
therefore you will need to wait until your grade is available from the school
via the school’s system. NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS POLICY WILL BE MADE
FOR ANY REASON. I DO NOT MAIL INDIVIDUAL GRADES ON POSTCARDS and I do not send them
in email or in any other way. It is the
student’s responsibility to keep track of all tests in order to monitor course
progress. I do not carry my gradebook
with me so I will not be able to tell you your grade off the top of my
head. Please do not call me to ask what
your final course grade is – your need to know by a certain date before the
school makes them available does not carry any weight. No exceptions.
You are expected to attend class regularly and will be held
responsible for all topics and sections covered in class. This
is NOT a course designed with the “occasional attendee” in mind. Coming to class is the way to find out what
the assignments are, what material was covered, what was stressed, what was
omitted, what was presented differently than in the textbook and to ensure that
you are doing what is expected of you. I
will sometimes present material from a different point of view than the book
and I do not feel obligated to follow the books presentation of material if I
wish to stress different things. This
also means I will not always follow the
section numbers in the book in a strict linear order (so for example I may
combine several sections into one lecture, skipping some kinds of examples and
adding a few of my own that are not in the book at all...or I may take a
totally different approach than what is presented in the book...You really do
not want to miss lecture!).
I am looking forward to helping you do your best in my course and wish you a great semester!!
“If I have seen further
than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants...”
-Isaac
Newton
Why study this stuff if I
will never use it??
Some of you will use math heavily in your future courses and/or careers. Others may not, however....Mathematics is a critical thinking subject. Although you may find that you do not use a particular kind of math in your daily life, learning to think in the critical way that math demands will help you develop your overall ability to analyze difficult problems that require a logical type of thinking. This type of ability is necessary in writing computer programs for example. As we continue progress into the computer age, more and more people will be expected to learn some amount of computer programming in professions that have not required this ability of the average employee in the past. Those people who have spent time honing the kind of thinking involved in the study of mathematics will have a definite advantage over those individuals who have not. Interestingly enough, the most highly valued and best paid employees in most businesses today are those who have done well in their college math courses.
One of the common misconceptions about math that many people have (no doubt, due to years of having been drilled in memorized methodology in grade school math) is that mathematical thinking is always rigid, cold and leaves no room for creativity. This is, however, far different than the way in which mathematicians regard the subject. In fact, its light years away from the way that mathematicians and people in scientific professions use math. One of my goals is to point out ways in which math lends itself naturally to the human creative process. This is probably one of the hardest aspects of the subject to communicate to another person. In a sense, it probably has to be “self-discovered”....much like students of Zen are guided by the Zen master on the one hand, but are only given the “techniques” to discover it on their own. No master can achieve a deep meditative state for someone else....it must come from within the individual student.....a similar situation holds in advanced mathematics. Although it can be hard to keep such things in perspective (when stumped by a difficult problem, for instance), some of the math-related videos I will offer for extra credit will also serve to make this apparent in the context of interviews with people who have used math at the “cutting edge”. One never knows who will be the next to find new creative uses of mathematics.
If
you arrive late to a test (defined by my announcement at the start of the test
that the test has officially begun), you
will lose 10 percentage points on that test. There
are no exceptions to this policy.
You are expected to be in your seats at least 5 minutes before the
official test time.
If
the test is scheduled to begin, say at
Every student in my class is subject to all policies expressed in this syllabus, whether or not you claim to have received a copy of it. As already stated, if you have not been marked in my grade book as having obtained the syllabus by the first exam, you will receive an F for your course grade.
If you feel a grading error has been made on one or more of your test questions, I will be happy to re-grade the entire test for you, but I will not consider individual problems for re-grading. The philosophy is simple: My goal is to ensure you end up receiving the score you earned. If an error in grading has deprived you of a few points, but an error in grading another problem has given you too many points, then both errors ought to be corrected – not only the ones that give you more points. When I hand back tests, I will allow you a short time to look over your test carefully in class and decide whether or not you would like the entire test re-graded and hand it back to me for re-grading immediately at that time before it leaves the room. Once I have given the class this chance to make a decision about re-grading and announce the last chance to hand the test back in for re-grading, I will not consider any further requests for re-grading that test at any time. If you decide you would like your test re-graded, then please follow proper procedure and hand back the test with a note to me on it, which details exactly where you think an error has been made. Each test is graded individually and not by comparison with other students. You may feel that you had more points taken off for making the same mistake as another student, but in reality, your paper may have suffered higher point loss for other reasons (such as degree of incorrectness in use of mathematical notations, clarity of explanation of what exactly your reasoning was, intelligibility, etc.).
Please be aware that often before I hand tests back, I make photocopies of each students’ test or of all tests with scores in a certain pre-decided range. If when re-grading and comparing the test you handed back to me with the photocopy of the original version you handed in, I detect any changes (erasures, crossings-out, re-writing things that were not originally there, etc.), I will promptly assign you an F course grade for cheating. I may also decide to pursue more severe action with the college administration, as I take cheating to be a very serious offense and will not deal with it lightly.
It’s
simple. If I catch you cheating or have
strong evidence of cheating on either the in-class or take-home tests, then I
will go out of my way to pursue the most severe action possible with the
administration (which can include, but is not limited to, expulsion from the
course or expulsion from CSN or assignment of a grade of “F” for the course,
notations on transcripts that cheating had been judged to have taken place). Be forewarned that although I can not monitor
you when you are doing a take-home exam, if I detect certain consistent and
highly unlikely “coincidences” between certain student’s test papers, you will
be called into my office for a required meeting as a first step in getting to
the bottom of these “unlikely coincidences”.
Be advised that after having graded thousands upon thousands of student
papers over the years, I am very much in touch with similarities that are the
sort that can occur by chance alone as well as other types of similarities that
do not occur by chance, but that are a direct result of student mutual
cooperation in doing a test. Unless
otherwise specified, you are always
expected to do all your own work on your graded assignments and are not allowed
to work together with other students or discuss any aspect of the test before
handing it to me. Asking other
people (tutors, teachers, Internet help chat rooms, bulletin boards, etc.) is
also cheating when it comes to tests. Plagiarism (either directly copying or
nearly directly copying – i.e., making trivial changes and calling the work
your own) is also cheating in my class.
Office hours serve several
purposes. Primarily, office hours are a
time when a student having difficulty with the course can establish and
maintain occasional contact with the professor of the course. While I am happy to talk to my students
during office hours, I would like to
stress that it is not the purpose of office hours to use that time for private
tutoring. If you need that much help
in the course, you will need to find a private tutor. To help you understand what I consider
appropriate and inappropriate use of office hours, consider the examples below:
Appropriate and
inappropriate uses for office hours:
1. Ask the professor
general advice. For instance, “do you
think I have adequate background to do well in this course?” “Do you think that I have enough study time
available to do well in the course?”
“How do you think I can change the way I study so as to learn better in
this course?”, etc....there are many kinds of advice questions that one may
want to ask.
2. Asking about points from lecture that you did not understand: If you plan to ask me about lecture, then please come prepared to office hours with your lecture notes in hand – do not waste time by being vague and expecting me to know what you are talking about unless you can articulately ask your questions. I realize you might be a bit lost and do not have great comprehension of a given math topic, but nevertheless I do expect you be to have specific questions in mind about what you do not understand. Just telling me “I am totally lost and need you to explain everything” will not be very useful. If I have an hour for office hours, then please realize that your personal time with me any given day may be limited to about 15 or 20 minutes –not the whole hour. Therefore, being specific and articulate will be necessary if we are to make any progress in that time.
3. I will not allow any one student to dominate office hours. While I encourage you
to maintain contact with me (all students, but especially those struggling with the course), I do not deem it appropriate for the same student to show up regularly and predictably every office hour. Again, the intended purpose of office hours is occasional contact outside class, but definitely not private tutoring and not directed study. We all need a little bit of help every now and then, but if you are in need of private tutoring, I will not hesitate to tell you so. In college level courses, a certain level of independence in the learning process is presumed
4. Please do not bring some long messy
computation and ask me to “find your mistake”.
If you want to go over a problem that has caused you great difficulty,
then I will often get you started or give you a decent hint or head start or
discussion about some conceptual aspect of the problem that seems to be the
source of difficulty, if I can identify one.
Finding things like nit-picky arithmetic mistakes is your
responsibility, not mine. No matter how
much math you ever learn, you are still human and will occasionally always
still make these kind of mistakes – but it is not a good use of office hours to
have me look at a long detailed calculation in order to hunt down those kind of
mistakes for you – by this point, you are expected to do that kind of hunting
yourself. If you look and look and still
can’t find your arithmetic error, then look some more...chances are that I can
not find it any quicker (and probably I am slower) than you for that sort of
thing. Take a break, listen to some
music, drink a cup of tea and then go back to it a little later – that often
helps.
5. Please come prepared and organized regarding the purpose of your visit during office hours.
I do begin to wonder about how serious the student is who has to first start digging around and flipping through pages of disorganized material desperately trying to figure out where he/she put this or that question....you are supposed to do all that before you come and be prepared with your materials when you show up for office hours. My time is valuable as is yours!
The following list of topics roughly constitute the material to be covered in the course – some modification may be made as the course progresses. We may also deviate from the order of the topics listed below considerably. It should also be noted that although a presentation of most of these topics may be found in the course textbook, the lectures in many cases will not follow the text very closely – in many instances, the lectures will cover specific applications and discussions of material not covered at all in the text. The primary purpose of having a textbook assigned for this course is twofold. First, it can be used as a course supplement for some of the topics (going on the philosophy that no one person has the final say on any subject – so two presentations on a topic are better than just one) and secondly, I will sometimes assign supplementary problems from the textbook that can serve to give students additional practice on some of the material or provide different kinds of examples than were presented in lecture. However, keep in mind that the most important material appearing on any test will be consistent with the kinds of problems and discussions presented in lecture and in the required homework assigned in lecture. I have also indicated next to leach topic the approximate number of lectures that I plan to devote to each topic. Some minor modifications of this may occur as the course progresses, but we will strive to stay on a rather tight schedule, since we have a lot of topics to cover during the semester.
Course Outcomes:
Requirements for all take-home work:
Unless otherwise explicitly
specified, all take-home assignments to be handed in for a grade must be done
so as to satisfy the following specifications.
Failure to do so will result in grade penalties.
1. Late work will be assessed a penalty of 15% off per each day late. When establishing a due date for any given take-home assignment, I always allow for more time than I think should be taken for students to complete the assignment – I usually allow for several days past the “reasonable length of time” that I have in my own mind. You are highly encouraged to begin tackling the assignment right away and not procrastinate and are free to hand it in to me any time before or on the announced due date. Therefore, I do not view requests for extensions as reasonable, even under emergency circumstances. If I were going to allow extensions, then I would also have made the initial due date earlier – by going out of my way to allow for more than ample time in the first place, I have in effect already given an automatic “extension” beyond a more “normal” length of time. Therefore, all deadlines are fixed and final.
2. Doing your own work/Cheating. I can not monitor whatever cheating may go
on outside of the classroom and I will not pretend to be able to do so. However, my experience tells me that people who cheat by having other people do their work for them and do not learn the material very well as a result, also are the people who are not able to perform on the in-class exams. Since most of your total course grade depends on in-class performance, you have much more to lose than gain by having other people do your take-home work (since you will not have any help when taking an in-class exam). Taking the proper amount of time to really learn the material, make your own mistakes on the take-home work, and correct those mistakes in your preparation for the exams, is the only way I know to be able to prepare yourself for the in-class exams. In addition to the take-home quizzes that are part of your grade, I may also sometimes give out practice quizzes or practice problems to do at home that will not be part of your grade but that are intended to help give you additional practice to prepare you better for the exams. Really taking your time on these practice opportunities and doing your own work and correcting your own mistakes is the best way to prepare for the exams.
3. I expect the appearance of the work to look “nearly professional”. By this I do not
mean that it has to be typed – it
can be hand written, but very neatly with no extraneous marks on the page, no
significant use of white-out on any given page, no cross-outs, etc. I expect the work to look like you took some
time and a lot of care to do it. Of
course math scribbles are never this neat initially – therefore you will need to do your work on scratch paper and then copy
it down NEATLY on the sheets to be handed in, showing all RELEVANT work in a
logical order and using correct math terminology and correct mathematical
notations.
All work should be done on standard 8.5 by 11 inch loose-leaf notebook paper or other paper of the same size (with out without holes). Handing in paper torn from a spiral notebook or any other paper with perforated edges is not acceptable and will receive a point-penalty of up to 20% of the total number of possible points. Handing in ripped/torn paper or otherwise mutilated paper will also receive the same kind of point penalty. My own philosophy on matters of neatness/care is that college is a time for you to demonstrate the BEST WORK of which you are capable. Having part of your grade reflect upon the level of care/pride/neatness is perfectly reasonable, since such issues are ones which matter a great deal in many “real world” professional job situations. Just think of some of your own experiences (I bet everyone has had them) in which you were not able to understand another person’s written description of something only because they did not take enough time and care with expressing the information in a clear way.
4. Do I always have to solve a problem like it was done in class or in the
textbook?
No – in areas of math and science, there is lots of room for uniqueness and creativity and I certainly make no claims to always have the easiest and absolute best way of doing a problem. To make such a claim would be arrogant. However, there are some restrictions of which you need to be aware, in order to preserve the continuity of the course. Here are the ones that come to mind: In order to receive credit for a solution, you must show all work and explain in a logical manner, from beginning to end, how the solution follows from material covered up to that point in the course. If your solution relies on significant theorems not covered in this course (but which another teacher in another course may have told you about), you may not receive credit for the work. The reason for this is simple: What I stress, for the most part, is logical development of material. That means that giving a solution that is reliant on a theorem that was not covered yet, gives you (and maybe a few others who happen to know the same theorem from a class taken elsewhere) an unfair advantage over someone who was never told about such a theorem. To be sure everyone has the same “tools” from which to work, it is a reasonable restriction to require you to use what has been done in this class and not pull in odds and ends from other places.
A similar principle applies to definitions. It is often the case that different textbooks adopt different definitions for the same thing. In such cases, if I am stressing a given definition in class and make a point of saying that is our definition, then that is the one you are expected to use if I ask for the definition. Although I only occasionally ask for definitions on tests/quizzes, I will only accept very precise definitions on those few occasions when I do ask for them. If we have stressed a given definition in class then I would expect to see that exact same definition as an answer on a test/quiz, should I ask for it and not just something you think is “close enough.”
Disclaimer for entire syllabus:
Information contained in this
syllabus, other than grading, late assignments, makeup work and attendance policies,
may be subject to change with advance notice, as deemed appropriate by the
instructor.