Syllabus

MA123, Sections 3 and 4

Fall, 2000

 

 

This is a one-semester survey of calculus, taught as a university studies course. The emphasis will be on the mathematical ideas with students gaining some experience in applying/exercising them in a small number of contexts.

 

The course meets: MWF in Room 341, Whitehall Classroom Building at 8:00 (Section 3) and 9:00 (Section 4).  You are expected to attend all class meetings except for excused absences.

 

The required course text is:

Calculus for Business, Economics, and the Social and Life Sciences, (seventh edition) by Hoffman and Bradley, McGraw Hill, 1996

 

Course Homepage: Announcements and general information about the course is available on the web at the address  http://www.msc.uky.edu/ken/ma123/

 

Instructor Information: K. K. Kubota, 955 Patterson Office Tower, 257-3641, ken@ms.uky.edu

Office Hours: MWF 10-11 and by appointment

 

Prerequisites and Expectations:

  1. Students are expected to have taken a pre-calculus mathematics curriculum.  They are expected to have mastered basic high school algebra and problem-solving, including the use of elementary functions and their graphs. In particularly they should have studied:
    1. Linear equations and lines, slopes, intercepts, linear equations, etc.
    2. Small degree polynomials and rational functions  - degree, roots, quadratic equation
  2. Although facility with them is not assumed, students who have seen the exponential function, the log function, and elementary trig functions in their pre-calculus courses will have an advantage over those who have not.
  3. Students are expected to have regular access to and be able to use a graphing calculator.  Instructors are not responsible for showing students how to use their calculators.  Class will be conducted and examinations prepared with the expectation that students will have calculators and know how to use them. 


HOMEWORK:

The departmental course homework is on the web at http://www.msc.uky.edu/wqs2 .  .

 

Connection to the system requires an individual account with a login and password. Advanced-registered students get these from their instructors during the first day(s) of class.  Accounts will not have been prepared in advance for students who have not registered in advance. These students will need to go to CB313 to get a class account. Students who registered late or who are on a waiting list for a section can take care of this before the first class meeting.  HOWEVER, acquiring a class account in this manner does not register one for the class.  Normally, accounts of students whose class registration is not made official will be deleted after the first few days of class.

 

Students having trouble with their accounts (including those that have lost or forgotten their account information) should also go to CB313 for assistance.

 

Students interact with the homework system solely through a web browser in a “point and click” mode. This can be done on any computer connected to the Internet.  This use as a communications tool is the only manner in which the course employs the computer.

 

The web-based homework system has multiple choice questions. It checks whether submitted answers are correct and records the date, time, problem, and submitted answer.  Then it returns the correct answer. Although it returns the percentage of a problem set that is answered correctly at each submission this is for the student’s information only.  It is not a grade and is not recorded. Students may submit an answer to a problem as often as they wish. In particular they may promptly submit the correct answer provided by the system.

 

Individual instructors will specify which problems must be done on what schedule and may assign additional or alternative problems

 

Students will receive a homework participation grade, which is the percentage of the course homework problems for which correct answers have been submitted in a timely manner.  Individual instructors may specify “timely manner” for individual homework sets. In the absence of such a specification “timely” will mean that the problem has been answered prior to the first examination on the material it covers.

 

Students must keep in mind that having credit for the correct answer on a problem indicates that they are prepared to have a similar problem on the exams. 

 

 

 

EXAMINATIONS:

 

There will be four, two hour departmental examinations:

·        EXAM 1:             Wed, Sept 20 at 5:00-7:00 PM, location to be announced

·        EXAM 2:             Wed, Oct 18 at 5:00-7:00 PM, location to be announced

·        EXAM 3:             Wed, Nov 15 at 5:00-7:00 PM, location to be announced

·        EXAM 4 (Final):   Thurs, Dec 14 at 8:30-10:30 PM, location to be announced

 

Students taking Ma123 should be aware that these test times are part of the course! 

 

Students who have scheduled other courses or have known responsibilities in conflict with these times must consult with their instructor immediately about scheduling alternatives before the end of drop-add!

 

 The problems and questions on a given examination will test for the skills and understanding specified in the list of course objectives  up to that examination. Although exams will tend to focus on more recent material students are responsible for the skills and understanding required for all previous examinations.   Students will receive a raw grade on each examination expressed as a percentage. This may subsequently be normalized (i.e. “curved”) up or down depending on the overall performance of all the Ma123 students.  All normalization will take place on individual examinations. There will be no subsequent, “overall” adjustment.

 

 

 

QUIZZES, REPORTS, PAPERS, ETC.

If it is judged necessary, quizzes may be given during class time.  The quizzes may be either announced or unannounced – but the type will be announced in class.  Additional homework may also be assigned, but it is not expected that reports or papers will be required.

 

COURSE GRADES:

 

Course grades will be computed as follows: each of the four examinations counts 20% of the grade, participation in the computer homework system will count 10% of the grade, and the last 10% will be at the instructor’s discretion – it will include class participation, and any additional activities beyond the exams and the common part of the homework system.  Letter grades will be assigned as follows: A = 90-100, B = 80-89, C = 70-79, D = 60-69, and E = 0-59.