Information for Math 153, fall 2009


Instructors

Who they areWhat they do
Lecturer
S. Greenfield
Office: Hill 542; (732) 445-2390 x3074;
greenfie@math.rutgers.edu
Office hours: Tuesday from 12 to 1 and Wednesday from 2:30 to 4 and by appointment (e-mail is best for arranging appointments). I will try to answer e-mail promptly and that might be the simplest way to get a rapid response to questions.
The duties of the lecturer include lecturing (not too surprising!), maintaining the web pages, selecting and writing additional instructional material such as workshops, and writing the two in-class exams. He will grade much of the exams and some of the workshops. The lecturer has overall responsibility for reporting course grades based on student work.
Recitation and workshop instructor
B. Nakamura
Office: Hill 535; (732) 445-2390 ;
bnaka@math.rutgers.edu
Office hours: To be announced.
The duties of the recitation instructor include overall responsibility for recitations and workshops (answering questions and facilitating workshops), grading some quizzes and workshops, and helping to grade exams. Recitation instructors also have office hours.
Peer mentors
Section 1 Kristina Manasaryants, majoring in Computer Science and Criminal Justice.
krmanas@eden.rutgers.edu
Section 2 Sruti S. Golthi, majoring in Biomedical Engineering.
sgolthi@eden.rutgers.edu
Peer mentors for each section help facilitate workshops and will grade textbook homework problems and possibly some quizzes. Peer mentors have no other responsibilities outside of class (so they have no office hours).


Local rules

Possible cheating

Suspected violations of academic integrity (cheating) will definitely be reported. Students should be familiar with Rutgers policies on academic integrity. The penalties for infractions (breaking the rules) can be quite severe. Students who are not sure should discuss this with any of their course instructors, please!

The progress of these sections (compared with ...)

It's my intention that we move at about the same pace as indicated in the official version of the syllabus (a more compact version for printing is here). Any serious difference with pace and content will be noted in the course diary. There are recommended problems in the syllabus, and students should be able to do most of them. Students will be requested to hand in solutions to a few of these problems every week at workshop meetings, but the problems to be handed in are intended to be minimal homework assignments and successful students will do much more work.

Due dates for textbook homework and workshop problems

Late textbook homework and late workshop writeups will generally not be accepted.

Exam procedures
  1. A formula sheet will be provided for each exam. A copy will be available for students several days before each exam.
  2. No other notes or textbook material may be used during the exam.
  3. No electronic devices may be used during the exam. This includes any calculators, any cellphones, and any musical devices. If emergencies make cellphone use necessary, inform the instructor before such use.
  4. Make-up exams will be given only in the case of illness, a major emergency, or a major outside commitment. Verification of each of these should be done through the appropriate Dean's office, and a written note from the Dean requesting a make up exam should be presented to the lecturer. You will need some form of proof (like a doctor's note, a police report, a towing bill etc.).
    If the reason for the make up is known in advance you must ask for permission before the exam. In all other cases, you should notify the lecturer using e-mail (preferred: greenfie@math.rutgers.edu), by phone (at (732) 445-2390 x3074 [equipped with an answering machine]), or through the Math Department Undergraduate Office (at (732) 445-2390 x2390) as soon as possible.
    No make ups will be granted for reasons like "the alarm clock didn't go off", "not knowing when the exam will be", or "not feeling prepared".
Grading

Although this is subject to change, students should expect that grades will be determined using the following point distribution:
       First exam in class: 100 points
     Second exam in class: 100 points
    Final exam: 200 points
    Workshops: 75 points
    Textbook homework: 40 points
    Quizzes & attendance: 70 points
    Total: 585 points
Unannounced short quizzes may be given at any class meeting, and no make ups will be given for these. One-point quizzes in lecture earn full credit for any answer (!). You are responsible for attending all class meetings. Math 153 is an experimental course, and the people involved in planning the course believe strongly that attendance is important. This will be reflected in strict penalties applied to the grades of students who miss 4 or more classes.
Generally, students who do not attend many classes in 151-152-251 usually get very low grades.

However, students whose exam grades are all near bare passing or are failing may fail the course in spite of numerical averages: students must show that they can do adequate work connected with this course independently and verifiably.

It is my intent to write and grade the exams so that approximately the following percentage cut-offs for letter grades can be used: 85 for an A, 70 for a B, 55 for a C, and 50 for a D. So there are "absolute standards" for letter grades rather than "a curve". I will be happy if every student gets a high grade.


Technology

Some special mention should be made about the use of technology in Math 151. Many of the computations may be elaborate, and, in practice, almost everyone (including the lecturer!) uses calculators and computers to help. I hope that graphing calculators and computers will be available to everyone in their working environments. The Math Department has decided that such technology generally should not be available to students taking final exams. I am a strong supporter of technology, but feel that this decision is reasonable. To help students prepare for the final exam in Math 151, no electronic devices may be used during exams.

Students should know how to use the devices that they own. Many of them can be very helpful in checking intermediate computations on homework problems. Many handheld devices can be fooled quite easily, however. Some common difficulties are described here and also here. There is more discussion on pages 2 and 3 of the local matter in the text.

More elaborate environments for computation exist, such as Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab. In particular, Maple is available on eden and most other Rutgers computer systems. Basic introductory material on Maple is here. The material can likely be used by many students in Math 152. It was created for students in Math 251, but I have used it in several sections of second semester calculus. I almost always have a Maple window open when I'm at the computer, and almost surely I will prepare lectures and exams for this class using Maple to check what I'm doing. All engineering students and many other students will become familiar with Matlab.

Here's a question which students may ask at times during the semester: "Why do I need to learn this stuff since a computer can do it?" Certainly a computer can tell you that 25.46 multiplied by 38.04 is 968.4984, but if I type PLUS instead of TIMES, I'll read 63.50. I should have enough "feeling" to look at the answer and know that something is fouled up, somewhere. Similarly, if I ask a computer to find an antiderivative (you'll learn what that is!) of (x2+2)/(x2+1), the answer will be x+arctan(x) (yes, yes, "+C"). But if I omit one or another pair of parentheses (or both) I get these answers: 2x-2/x, (x3/3)+2arctan(x), (x3/3)-(2/x)+x. This is a rather simple indefinite integral, and things get much more complicated with more complicated questions. Students should know the "shape" of the answer (so 25.46 multiplied by 38.04 is hundreds, not 63.50!). And that, to me, is an important aim of the course.


Maintained by greenfie@math.rutgers.edu and last modified 8/28/2009.