Note on my email address: nweining@rci.rutgers.edu is my teaching email. Please use it, rather than any other address of mine you may find, for class-related questions.
Other notes and updates:
Dec. 6: Homework from sections 5.1-5.3 is due at the next meeting, and the quiz will cover those sections. Also, the review session will be held Wednesday 12/15 from 2 to 4 PM in Hill 425.
On Monday 12/13 I will hold office hours from 2:50-3:50 and 5-5:50. I will
also hold a final review session on Wednesday 12/15. Time and place for this
session are yet to be determined; watch this space.
Nov. 29: Homework from sections 4.7 and 4.10 is due at the next
meeting, 12/2. Normal office hours resume this week.
Nov. 18: Problem #1 from Workshop 11 is to be written up and handed
in at the next meeting, 12/2. There will be no office hours on Monday 11/22
or Wednesday 11/24.
Nov. 14: There will be no quiz at the next meeting on 11/18. However,
homework from sections 4.3, 4.5, and 4.6 will be due.
Nov. 11: Problem #2 from Workshop 10 is to be written up and handed
in at the next meeting, 11/18. There will be an extra office hour Monday
11/15 from 2:50 to 3:50, in addition to the regular 5-5:50 time. There will
be no office hour on Wednesday 11/17.
Nov. 8: Problem #3 from Workshop 9 is to be written up and handed in
at the next meeting, 11/11. The next quiz will cover material from Sections
4.2 and 4.4.
Oct. 30: Problem #4 from Workshop 8 is to be written up and handed in
at the next meeting, 11/4. The next quiz will cover material from Sections
3.11 and 4.1.
Oct. 16: Problem #3 from Workshop 6 is to be written up and handed in
at the next meeting, 10/21. There will be no quiz next week due to the
midterm exam, and I will not have my regular office hours on
Wednesday.
Oct. 7: Problem #3 from Workshop 5 is to be written up and handed in
at the next meeting, 10/14. The next quiz will cover material from Sections
3.4 and 3.5.
Oct. 1: Problem #6 from Workshop 4 is to be written up and handed in
at the next meeting, 10/7. The next quiz will cover material from Sections
2.7-3.2.
Sep. 25: Problem #2 from Workshop 3 is to be written up and handed in
at the next meeting, 9/30. The next quiz will cover material from Sections
2.5 and 2.6.
Sep. 20: Problem #2 from Workshop 2 is to be written up and handed in
at the next meeting, 9/23. The next quiz will cover material from Sections
2.3 and 2.4. Also, I have instituted a second regular office hour, on
Mondays from 5:00 to 5:50 PM (the last part of 6th period).
Sep. 10: Problem #3 from Workshop 1 is to be written up and handed in at the
next meeting, 9/16. At that meeting we will have our first quiz, which will
cover material from Sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the book.
How will the homework be graded?
The peer mentor for your section will grade the homework (non-workshop) that you hand in each week. In all, these homework assignments will be worth 5% of your grade.
How will the quizzes be graded?
There will probably be 12 quizzes in all; each is worth 10 points. At the end of the semester, I will add up your ten highest quiz grades (dropping at least the lowest two) to get a number between 0 and 100. I will report this number to Prof. Dare; the quizzes will count for 7% of your course grade.
How will the workshop writeups be graded?
Each week you will turn in an individual writeup of one of the workshop problems handed out the previous week. Note that although you work on the workshop problems in groups, and are encouraged to continue discussing these problems with your classmates after the meeting, your writeup must be your own work; copying from someone else's writeup is plagiarism and will be dealt with according to the Rutgers policy on academic integrity. Altogether the writeups will be worth 8% of your course grade.
I will grade each writeup on a 10-point scale. The grade will indicate both the correctness of the mathematical content and the clarity and correctness of your expository writing. The intent of workshop writeups is to make you write clearly, using complete English sentences, and in such a way that another calculus student could read your writeup and gain a good understanding of how to solve the problem. This exercise will improve not only your communication skills but also the depth of your calculus knowledge; there is no better way to really understand what's going on in a problem than to have to explain it to someone else.
Your first few workshop grades may be lower than you expect due to poor exposition. Don't be discouraged by this; you have probably never been graded on your mathematical writing ability before, and good expository mathematical writing is a skill that takes time and effort to learn. There are a number of documents you may find useful in learning how to write up workshop problems well. One is Prof. Dare's "Five Steps to Better Mathematical Writing", copies of which I will distribute at the first workshop meeting and have available thereafter. Two TA's from past semesters, Eva Curry and Aaron Lauve, have also written excellent guides to workshop writing; Eva's is here and Aaron's is here.
If I miss a workshop meeting, can I make up the quiz, or turn in a workshop or homework assignment late?
Makeup quizzes will not be given. Period. No exceptions. Instead I will drop your two lowest quiz grades, so you can miss up to two quizzes without penalty. Please do not send me email explaining your extraordinary special circumstances and requesting to make up a quiz; all such requests will be refused.
Workshop writeups are due the day of the workshop meeting following the workshop discussion; again, no exceptions will be given for special circumstances. However, if for some reason you are going to miss the meeting on a particular day and wish to turn in your workshop writeup, you may put it in my mailbox, in the math department mailroom on the third floor of Hill Center. You must do this by 4:15 on the day the writeup is due in order to receive credit for the writeup.
Homework assignments, on the other hand, must be turned in at the workshop meeting when they are due; there is no way to turn them in and receive credit other than to show up in person.
What if the lecturer does not cover all the sections the syllabus says are supposed to be covered?
I will keep in touch with Prof. Dare and keep track of what sections are actually covered in lecture. I will adjust the schedule of homework problems covered in workshop meetings appropriately. Quizzes, likewise, will be based only on material actually covered in lectures and discussed at the previous week's workshop meeting. However, if you aren't sure whether a lecture really fully covered material from a section, you should always do the homework problems from that section just in case, unless Prof. Dare specifically says otherwise.Can I email you with questions on homework, or workshops, or other math-related questions?
Yes, you can, and I encourage you to do so.If I can't make the workshop section I'm registered for, can I come to one of the other sections you teach?
You may attend one of the other sections, and you may also take the quiz for that section and turn in your workshop writeup at that section. However, your homework must be turned in to the peer mentor for your section, and you may not be able to meet that mentor except at the time of the section you are registered for.
The workshop meetings will be organized roughly as follows:
During the first portion of the class, I will attempt to discuss a representative sample of the homework problems from the sections you have covered in the previous week's lecture(s). The quizzes will be based directly on the homework problems from the sections we've just discussed. So, for example, at the meeting on September 9 we will discuss the homework from the sections covered in lecture September 1, and on September 16 we will discuss the homework from the sections covered September 6 and 8.
Most quiz questions will be slightly modified versions of homework problems. Therefore, doing the suggested homework problems, and asking questions about those you find troublesome, is by far the best preparation for the quizzes. Note that calculators may not always be allowed on quizzes or exams, so you should practice doing homework problems without a calculator whenever feasible.
In the workshop discussion portion, you will split into small groups and I will hand out several workshop problems. Within each group, you will collaboratively come up with outlines of solutions to these problems; the problems are typically more difficult and open-ended than regular homework problems. The peer mentor and I will walk around from group to group giving advice and hints on how to approach the problems-- but not to give you solutions! A few minutes before the end of the meeting time, I will announce which problem you are to write up and hand in the following week.
The syllabus and homework assignments are available from the instructor's page. More general information about the conduct of the course, including sample workshop writeups, is available from the course page. This page also has a lot of old exams and review problems.
Here are some good study tips, courtesy of Eva Curry.