Course Syllabus for Math 283- Fall 2008
Intermediate Calculus 283 (4 credit hours)
Call Number: 47171
Description: Topics include vectors, differentiation and integration of vector valued functions, multivariable calculus, partial derivatives, multiple integrals, and applications. Prerequisite: Math 182 with a grade of C or better; or a satisfactory ACT/SAT/Placement Test Score.
Instructor: Gary Cohen
Where and when
this course meets: Building C on
the
Office hours and location: My office is located on the West Charleston Campus in Building H, first floor, H101, Tel: 651-5812
Office hours this semester will be announced in class.
Please note that in general, I will not be able to schedule other office hours. Therefore please recognize that you will have to adjust your schedule on the days you wish to come see me during my office hours. If you plan on coming to evening office hours in room C276, please inform me that you will be coming that same day by phone or in person.
Email: gary.cohen@csn.edu
My faculty web-site
is http://www.nevada.edu/~coheng
You are required to go to my web site, 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.
Please note that there is no possible way for me to schedule office hours that are convenient for every student. Since I have a busy schedule, I may not be able to schedule other times that are convenient to you to meet me in my office – therefore please realize that it is the student responsibility to work around my schedule, if you wish to see me in office hours.
TEXTBOOK : The course and tests are based on my lectures and homework packets. Both lecture and homework problems are based, in large part, on the presentation of material that can be found in Calculus, the 8 th edition, by Larson and Hostetler, published by Houghton Mifflin. While it is not required that you purchase the textbook, I would strongly recommend that you purchase the book and student solution manual for the book. My experience in the past has been that the best students in the class who take good lecture notes often do not make much use of the recommended textbook, while other students find a much stronger need for a text to fall back on and become quite frustrated if they do not have one. If you choose to use a previous edition of the book, then you are responsible for figuring out what pages and problem numbers are relevant yourself.
PREREQUISITES: Math 182 or equivalent. A strong background in first and second semester calculus is required. If you have taken these courses at another institution or have taken them a while ago and are in need of review, then its the student’s responsibility to come to this course with the proper background. This is a fast paced intensive course and we will not be able to spend much time on review. The student is expected to function with a decent degree of mathematical maturity and independence in the learning process, without “hand holding”. If you are unsure about whether you have the proper background, then I would suggest looking at the textbook.
Course Outcomes:
Perform operations on vectors.
Differentiate and integrate vector valued functions.
Analyze functions of several variables.
Perform partial differentiation.
Evaluate double and triple integrals in several coordinate systems.
Analyze vector fields.
Apply and extend all concepts.
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 always follow the
book (some of the lectures may be on topics not even covered in the textbook),
so attending the lecture is absolutely critical in order to keep up and not
find yourself lost in class.
It is critical to
note that the material tested on exams is based on my lectures and assignments
– missing class and just reading the textbook will usually not be sufficient
preparation for what will be tested. The
textbook is being used largely in this course as a supplement and
reference.
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 duringthe middle of this.
This procedure is to minimize disturbance to the rest of
the class and is not a punishment.
Anyone arriving late for a test/quiz/exam will
automatically lose 10 percentage points on that test/quiz/exam.
Because this policy will be strictly enforced,
please do yourself a favor and arrive a few minutes early to class, so that you
do not take a chance on being counted late.
Please do not argue about whether
or not you were late – it will do no good.
Anytime after the test has been announced as having begun, you are
late. Also, please do not try to engage
me in a conversation at this time – the
point is to have silence so that other students will not be disrupted.
GRADING:
There will be 3 exams in the course prior to the final exam and a cumulative final exam.
Your final course grade is determined from the following weighting of grades:
Test #2 20%
Test #3 20%
Final Exam 20%
Pop Quizzes 20%
Quizzes may occur at any
time during any class period – so if you leave early, you may be missing a quiz
on any given day.
If you miss just one of the
first three exams, then the cumulative final exam automatically will be counted
for 40% of your course grade. If you
miss more than one of the first three exams, then the second and third miss
will count as scores of zero. An
additional stipulation is that if any tests or quizzes are given on a take-home
basis, then those particular tests/quizzes MUST be turned in and may not be
missed under any circumstances.
Since the final exam will be a harder exam, you are strongly advised not to miss any exams. There are absolutely no make-up tests/quizzes and there is no make-up exam for the final exam. The final exam is mandatory - if you do not show up for the final exam and take it, then your course grade will be “F.
If you miss a class, it is your responsibility to get a copy of any assignments/handouts that were distributed during the missed class. I may or may not have a copy of what you need with me the next class period. Therefore you may need to rely on photocopying the handouts from another student in order to be able to do 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. Please do not call or email me asking me to email or fax what you need. Please do not ask me what you missed when you were gone – since the course is lecture driven, you will have to get the notes from another student in the class and see for yourself what you missed.
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 (there is no such grade in the course as A+, however). 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 quizzes and 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/exams, so if you want to use one, then be sure to bring your own. You may also want to bring an extra set of
good batteries just in case the ones in your calculator fail during the
test.
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 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.
Help with problems in other
courses: I am teaching you math 283
and therefore will be as helpful as I can with all your math 283
questions. For help with questions in
other math courses or math related courses that you may be taking (such as linear algebra or
differential equations or applied math courses, for instance), please see your
instructor for those courses. .
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 it 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. 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/quizzes/tests. If you do not come to class having done the homework, you will not be able to derive the full benefit of the homework and may feel lost on material that presumes an understanding of previously covered topics.
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.
I have had many experiences where students have been shocked and upset by not receiving credit for correct answers, but in which there was a gap in logical justification. Just remember, I am grading you on your logical steps – not on the answer (which for all I know, you might have copied off someone else’s paper). The two kinds of mistakes that most bother me are: (a) gaps in logical steps shown in your work,
(b) incorrect usage of mathematical notations, (c) work that is not neatly written or that is disorganized or too abbreviated and hard to follow. Since you only have two take-home tests, I expect each one of them to look as though you put a lot of time and effort into them. This includes presentation/neatness./clarity as well as accuracy.
Homework in this
course is for your benefit – it will not be collected and it will not be
graded. However, spend lots of time and
learn it well – otherwise there is little chance of doing well on the
tests! Homework in this course is in the
form of packets you will receive.
Answers/Solutions to these problems will be provided on reserve in the
library.
Extra Credit:
There may be a few
opportunities to do an extra credit assignment to earn a few extra points in
the course. Most of these kinds of
assignments may involve things that are peripheral/tangential
to the thrust of the course and will not be useful for making up for a lack of
understanding of required material. A few of these points may involve viewing a
math-related video in class and do a related assignment on it. I will generally not announce the videos in
advance. There may also be an extra credit
problem or two on some of the tests that you can choose to attempt if you have
time for it after doing the rest of the test.
The total extra credit points for the course will be very few in number. The occasional extra credit problem on tests
will be hard compared to the required problems, but I may occasionally hint in
lecture about possible candidates for such problems. My suggestion is to take careful notes in
lecture and anticipate the extra credit questions the best you can, if you care
about them – but please do not hound me for hints. The purpose of extra credit test questions is
to demonstrate ingenuity on the test – not to know in advance which problems
you will be asked to answer. Your extra
credit work will only count, if you have at least a
70% test/quiz average for the course. Much of the extra credit may only be a “check”
in my grade book and I will decide on point value only when I do final
grades.
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, despite the fact that the school policy states that instructors may (but are not required to) give more time than this. I will not let a student drag things out for many weeks.
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 quizzes/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 quizzes/tests/homework 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.
ACADEMIC HONESTY: Cheating, plagiarism and other acts of academic dishonesty are considered to be very serious offenses at CCSN. Any student involved in such activity will 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 deem a student disruptive during class, I reserve the right to ask that student to sit in a different seat of my choosing. If there are further problems, then I may resort to calling campus police and having that student removed from my class in accordance with the official disruptive student policy at CSN.
Cell phones are banned in this course. You are not allowed to make or receive calls,
receive or send text messages, use your phone as a calculator or for any other
purpose in the classroom.
Students with medical, psychological, learning or other
disabilities desiring academic adjustments, accommodations or auxiliary aids
will need to contact the campus
The Disability Center determines eligibility for and authorizes the provision of services.
Finding out your final course Grade: I do not post grades for reasons of protecting individual privacy of all students - therefore you will need to wait until your grade is available from the school via the automated 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 quizzes 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.
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 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.”
The reason has nothing to do with any belief on my part that my definition is the best one – but rather it has everything to do with the need for the entire class to be united and consistent in the details of how we think about things, so that proofs of theorems (that are ultimately dependent on certain definitions) make sense to everyone in the class for the same reasons (or perhaps everyone is lost – but not on account of misunderstanding the definitions).
After all, just think of how frustrating personal conversations can be if the two people involved are not even using the same working definitions (but are not aware of that fact) and whose basic disagreement comes down in the end analysis to a difference in definitions!
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 book's 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 gi ants..” -
I believe in honesty and
directness when it comes to communication with students. Therefore, I will tell you outright that
there is far more homework in this class than we could ever hope to have the
time to cover in
class. Not only that, but it gets
worse: Since many calculus problems are
rather time consuming, there will really only be time to do a small fraction of
all homework problems in class. This is perhaps
a different situation than you have experienced in previous lower level math
courses, where there may have been fewer or simpler, less time consuming
problems. Since this course is a
prerequisite for serious minded students who will mostly be going into
math-related majors (engineering, physics, etc), we simply can not afford to
fail to get through the vast amount of material that will be presumed of you in
such majors. Therefore, although the
homework is very important for you to do outside of class, the homework will
very often not form a central part of many lectures – at this point in your
studies, a certain amount of independence and ability to function without being
hand-held through each homework problem you get stuck on is presumed,
indeed. A wonderful aid to you will be
the student solution manual sold in the book store. Buy it and use it as much as needed when
doing your homework (although its also important to
give each problem a serious attempt before just looking up the solution).
On a positive note, you are
more than welcome to come to office hours and discuss problems on which you get
stuck. Sometimes in class although we
might not have the time to slog through the tedious details of a given problem,
if at all possible, I will try to give useful advice on how to start and in
which direction you should try to head.
This often will be enough for you to go home and carefully work out the
details.
For those of you who have had me as your teacher in previous calculus courses, you probably have a good idea of how much time you will need doing homework. For those of you who have not had me before, all I can tell you is that you should expect to spend a lot of time doing calculus homework. This means being realistic about not overloading yourself with an unreasonable load of classes. Roughly I would estimate that the average student would spend around 4 hours per lecture doing homework – that’s a minimal estimate (2 hours spent on studying lecture notes and 2 hours spent doing the problems...even though a few problems from each section might be challenging and take a long time if you get stuck on those). I would also caution you about trying to do all your calculus homework and studying for the week in just one or two sittings. That’s not a reasonable plan for the average human to absorb this material at the expected level. You should be doing calculus at least 5 days out of the week, if not more.
The world of calculus is a jungle. Nobody can do all the problems in each section in reasonable time – and few people would have that much time. Additionally, there is a vast range of difficulty levels represented in the problem sections in the text. Some of the more difficult problems are put there to challenge the very best students. You should not feel bad about not being able to do such problems – some of these even are challenging problems for math teachers!
The point here is that this makes calculus a living breathing subject that is not just dead after you have gone through material initially – there is always more to come back to and try again if you couldn't’t do some of these problems the first time you studied this material.
However, by doing the carefully selected problems in your homework assignments, you should leave this class with a solid background for further study of this very deep subject and its applications. So sit back and enjoy the ride!
Wishing you a great semester,
Gary Cohen
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. Remember as stated earlier in the syllabus, each student is required to have been checked off in my grade book as having printed out a complete copy of the syllabus in the beginning of the course.
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.
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 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!
Its
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.
Disclaimer for entire syllabus:
Suggested Homework from Calculus, 8 th ed. By Larson/Hostetler/Edwards:
The following is a list of suggested problems. There are probably many more problems listed here than any one student would have time to do while taking the course. I have provided them for students who like a long list of relevant problems. I suggest doing a good sample of problems from any given section and not just the easier ones!
Sec 10.1: Read and review but this section will not be directly tested by itself.
Sec 10.2: 3-31, 39-53
Sec 10.3: 1-15, 21-51, 63-71, 81-87
Sec 10.4: 1-17, 27-51, 59, 69-79
Sec 10.5: 1-25, 31-39, 45, 47, 55, 57, 59, 65
Sec 10.6: Skip. We may cover some of this material lightly later on in the course.
Sec 11.1: 1-75, 79, 83, 85, 89, 91, 93
Sec 11.2: 1-87, 99, 111, 113
Sec 11.3: 1-37, 41, 43-49, 71, 73, 77, 79, 81, 85
Sec 11.4: 1-19, 27-37, 41-47, 57, 59, 63
Sec 11.5: 3-23, 25-29, 35-39, 41-51, 57-69, 83-97
Sec 11.6: 1-15, 19-29, 45-51
Sec 11.7: skip for now – will come back later
Sec 12.1: 1-19, 23-29, 45-49, 55, 59, 61, 63, 67, 69-73
Sec 12.2: 9-25, 29-33, 39, 41, 45-67, 87
Sec 12.3: 1-5, 9-15, 27, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45, 47, 51, 53
Sec 12.4: 5-15, 23-29, 31, 33, 35-43, 63
Sec 12.5: skip
Sec 13.1: 1-15, 17-37, 49-55, 69, 71
Sec 13.2: 1-27, 29, 31, 41-47, 59, 61, 71, 72
Sec 13.3: 5-39, 51-65, 77, 81, 85
Sec 13.4: 1-17, 31-43
Sec 13.5: 1-41, 63*
Sec 13.6: 1-45, 55, 57, 63
Sec 13.7: 1-33, 49, 51, 57
Sec 13.8: 7-13, 21-25, 45-49, 53-61
Sec 13.9: 1-21
Sec 13.10: skip
Sec 14.1: 1-63
Sec 14.2: 1-19, 33-41, 49, 51, 53
Sec 14.3: 9-21, 23, 25, 37-41, 55
Sec 14.4: 1-7, 11-21
Sec 14.6: 1-7, 13-21, 33, 35
Sec 14.7: 1-5, 9-13, 17
Sec 14.8: skip
You will be informed at a later point of any additional problems from chapter 15.