COURSE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES- MATH 251, FALL 2005 (A. Freire)
1- Attendance:
attendance to every class meeting is expected. I will take attendance
at almost every
class, and keep a record- if a student's attendance is spotty, later
complaints about low grades will be
met with skepticism. If you must miss a class, you are responsible
for finding out what was covered.
If you have time, it is usually a good idea to read the section in
advance. It is also usually a good idea to
take notes during class.
In lecture I'll emphasize the main concepts and results in a section
and work a few illustrative examples.
Many of the details will be left for you to read independently
(including entire sections- see the syllabus.)
Students receiving financial aid (e.g. lottery scholarships): be
advised that I am required to report to the
University administration the names of supported students who have not
been attending regularly.
2- Course log- this page will
be updated after every class- it will include the topics covered that
day,
the topics to be introduced next time, homework assignments and other
relevant information. Please make
a habit of checking it often- this course WILL NOT have a Blackboard
presence, except for
a link to my home page.
3-Classroom behavior- in
addition to Hilltopics (p.11/12), there is an official departmental
policy for mathematics
classes, which I will expect you to become familiar with:
Classroom
behavior expectations (PDF file)
Violations will be dealt with in the manner described therein. Note
that the list includes systematic tardiness,
leaving early without notifying me in advance, reading newpapers in
class and disruptive noise
(e.g. cellphones, which should be OFF during class).
Please review also the sections of Hilltopics dealing with `academic
dishonesty' (cheating)-p.19/20 of
the 2005-06 edition. The penalty for cheating on an exam of quiz will
be a grade of 0 on that exam or
quiz for a 1st offense, grade F in the course and referral to an
Academic Review Board for a second offense.
QUESTIONS? I encourage
you to ask questions in class if an explanation is not clear; it it
usually the
best students who ask questions, and no question will be considered
`below par'. However,
questions in class should refer to the topic being discussed
(otherwise, ask after class). The question
"which section in the book are you discussing" is not considered
appropriate. If a
topic is not covered in the
text I'll warn the class; otherwise it should be obvious where to
find it in the text.
4-Homework- following each
class, the homework problems corresponding to the material covered
will be posted on the `course log' page. Homework assigned by Wednesday
of each week is considered
`due' on Friday of the same week (expected average:12 to 15
problems/wk). Homework will NOT be
graded; instead, the homework grade will be based on short QUIZZES,
given every Friday beginning on
9/2. The quizzes will consist of homework problems. If you write up
homework
solutions at home, do turn them in when the corresponding quiz takes
place (but no later.)
Students who regularly turn in (neatly written) homework will be viewed
favorably when
deciding grades in
borderline cases. (Conversely, if you never turn anything in, I will
take this as evidence you are not doing homework.)
Ordinarily I won't have time to discuss all but very few homework
problems in class. Questions about
homework problems should be asked during office hours (or by e-mail or
phone).
5-Exams- There will be four
exams (including the final); together with the quiz grade, this gives a
total of
five grades. The lowest of these five will be disregarded. The course
grade will be the arithmetic average
of the three highest grades and (highest+lowest)/2 (of the
remaining 4).
Please note: in the exams I'll
be interested in how much a student has learned, at a conceptual level.
The only
way to measure whether one has really understood the material is by
proposing new questions. Typically on
the exams I will include a few questions (say, 2 or 3 of a total of 8)
which
are not `like' any problem seen before
in class, in the text, or in the homework. It will probably be hard to
pass this course (at least with a B or better)
if all you can do is `memorize typical problems' and imitate the
solutions on the exams- you will need to understand
the material at a (slightly?) higher level.
Exam dates will be announced 10 days (or more) in advance. Students who
will miss an exam due to participation
in a University activity should warn me in advance and provide
documentation. Students who miss due to illness
should provide a signed doctor's statement. In both cases, the
course average will be computed over 4 grades, as
above. Students missing exams without prior (properly justified)
warning will get a 0 on them.
There will be no makeups of exams or
quizzes.
6. Grading
Expected
grading scale: 80% or higher: A; 65% to 79%: B or B+; 55% to 64%: C or
C+; below 50%: F
(Do not be fooled by this grading scale.)
IMPORTANT REMARK:
I do not `grade on a curve': your
grade on each quiz or exam (and in the course) will depend only on your
own performance, without taking into account how the rest of the class
does. In addition, the fact that
a student must maintain a certain average to avoid losing a scholarship
will play
no role when I'm assigning final course grades.
Finally, there will be no 'extra
credit' assignments to improve the grades of individual
students.
7. If you must quit the class:
drop without W by 9/2, with a W by 10/4, with a WP-WF by 11/15. For the
latter, you must bring a form for me to sign.
8. Course content- As long as
the level and general goals of the course are respected, the details of
which material
is introduced in the course are my responsibility. That is to
say, I do not keep track of what instructors of other
sections of this course are doing. The choice of topics may vary
substantially from one section to another, but this
should not matter to you. You are responsible for learning
the material introduced in this section; on rare occasions
this may include material not found (or not emphasized) in the text-
I'll pont that out when it happens.
9. Calculators. Most
calculators can deal with many linear algebra operations studied in
this course. Feel free to use
any calculator you like (except when
instructed otherwise for a particular exam problem.) I am somewhat
familiar with
these procedures for the TI-85 and the TI-83+ ; the sooner you
familiarize yourself with them, the better (in general,
I will not spend time with `this is not working on my calculator'
questions in class- please see me after class.) For
the TI-85, here is a list I prepared a while ago:
GUIDE TO
BASIC LINEAR ALGEBRA FUNCTIONS- TI85
I will have to deal later with the fact that the TI85 computes
eigenvalues/eigenvectors, but the TI83+ apparently does not.
10.
Learning. You should gradually get used to
being SELF-TAUGHT. No
one can make you learn a subject you
don't care about. For the other subjects, the instructor's main role is
to point out what is important (in the forest of less essential
material
included in most texts), and the interconnections and applications, but
it is up to you to learn it
any
way you can. At times my `explanations'
(and/or pace) may assume a fluency with `lower level' material that is
not present.
If this happens, raise your hand and ask a
relevant question. If you still can't understand the
answer, ask during office hours- or study with a classmate, friend,
tutor, etc- anything that works for you. In the end your
grade will reflect how much you've learned, and the `reasons' for a low
(or failing) grade won't matter.
A common reason for a good student to get low grades in a class like
this is that he/she is taking too many hours: 15h/sem is
plenty for a student who is not working. Those working outside of
school (or taking care of a child or other non-academic
reponsibility) should not go beyond 12h. Taking a heavier
course load with good grades would only be possible if the courses were
trivial, which very few courses are. (In particular, this
one is not) For this course, if you are not spending at least 2h
reading the text and working on problems for each hour of lecture, you
are probably not spending enough time to get a good
grade (A or B.) (This is a necessary, but often not a sufficient
condition- some students will need more time.)
If your course load is heavy, it is probably a good idea to drop a
class early on (if it is this one, please let me know.)