Matt Charnley

General Course Format

This course will be run in an asynchronous, non-self-paced format. What this means is two things

• There will be no full-class live meetings that everyone will be required to attend. You will be able to work on the course material on your own time, whenever it best fits your schedule.
• However, there will still be deadlines, and every element of this course will have a due date assigned to it that you need to meet. You will be given more than enough time to complete it, but this aspect of the course makes sure that everyone is on track with the quizzes and exams over the course of the summer.

Outside of this, the course will run mostly like normal. You will still have normal homework sets, quizzes, exams, and workshops to complete. All of this will be supported by me through office hours, email, and discussion board interactions. The rest of this page will give you some idea of how each of these components will work, and will finish with some frequently asked questions that I anticipate, and will be expanded to include more questions as I get them.

Content Delivery

The content for this course will still be structured in 'days' of class as a recommendation for when the material should be completed. The method of content delivery for this asynchronous course is three-fold.

• Videos: I will be making lecture/content videos for the entirety of the course. There will be several videos for each section of the textbook and each 'day' of class. These will cover the basic material and concepts from each day.
• Interactive Worksheets: Each 'day' of class will also come with an interactive worksheet, showing more sample problems from the section. These will be provided with a set of hints to help guide you through the problems. These hints will progressively give more guidance on how to complete the problem. You are encouraged to work using as little as possible of the hints to further your understanding of the topic. There will be problems at the end of this worksheet that you need to submit for grading.
• Textbook: The textbook is also a great reference for this course, and everything that we do will be tied to a section in the book. Reading the book will also provide a great foundation for this course.

Homework

Homework for this class will take place in the same manner as the normal Calculus 2 classes. You will need access to the Sapling Plus homework system, which carries over from Calculus 1 if you had it then. These assignments will be due weekly, following along with the videos and other course content.

Quizzes and Exams

Quizzes and Exams for this course will happen mostly like normal, or at least normal for an online environment. There will be a quiz or exam every week, with three midterm exams and a cumulative final exam. The exact format of these exams is still undetermined, but they will likely be partially timed exams on Canvas, and partially untimed assignments where you will need to upload solutions with all of your work presented.

Workshops

Workshops will also be given in this class. However, with the asynchronous nature of the class, we will not all meet at a preassigned time to work on the workshops. At the start of the course (or before it) I will put out a poll asking for when everyone would prefer and be able to meet virtually with classmates. With this information, I will put everyone into workshop groups that will stay constant over the entire summer. Each week, the groups will need to meet at a mutually acceptable time to work on the problems. At the end of the week, I will go over the solutions, and then each group will need to schedule a meeting with me to discuss these problems at the start of the next week.

In order to facilitate the process of doing workshops, we will be using the online platform Piazza. This platform allows for Wiki-style editing of problems, so that the group will be able to work together on the problem and present one full solution to it. I'll be able to provide feedback at this point, and then the group will be able to finalize the solution before we meet virtually (live) on Mondays to discuss the problems.

Office Hours

I will be having very frequent office hours throughout the summer to facilitate the interactions that are common in the face-to-face classroom. It will likely be for at least an hour per day, and I will also be available on a by-appointment basis outside of that. The shift away from the normal full-class meetings will allow more of the live interactions to focus on everyone's individual needs as opposed to covering the content of the course. I will also be very active on the Piazza board, which we will also use for messaging purposes, and will allow for everyone to get rapid responses to their questions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Click on the questions to reveal the answers.

1. This class feels strange. So there's no structure at all? How will I know how to pace myself?
   The course will still be put together in a way that corresponds to class days. If you want to keep to a daily schedule for this course, you'll be able to complete one class worth of material every class day and stay right on track to succeed in this course. If something comes up though, you can move these days around to have more flexibility with the schedule. You can also work on the course at whatever time of day works best for you.

2. What will the deadlines in this course look like?
   The deadlines aren't entirely set in stone yet, but my plan is to have them be weekly. The deadlines and assignments to turn in for this course will be groups into weekly batches of assignments and homework sets. There will be recommended problems and sets for each day, but you will only need to turn them in once per week. Effectively, you can arrange your time however you would like, but you need to keep to the weekly schedule of due dates.

3. Does this mean we won't get to talk to the instructor ever?
   No! It actually means that there are more opportunities for meaningful discussions with me. Since we aren't spending time in-class, I will be more available to meet and discuss the course in a small-group or 1-on-1 setting, which will be more helpful to improve your understanding of the material.

Contact

If you have any questions about this, feel free to email me at the address at the top of the page. I will be more than happy to answer your questions about this as we move towards this course in the summer. I'm really excited for this format, and hope you'll come to enjoy it too.