Math 0220

Student Guidelines and Syllabus

About the course

This is the first in a sequence of three calculus courses for science and engineering students. The goal is to prepare you to make use of calculus as a practical problem-solving tool.

Text

The text for this course is James Stewart, Calculus Concepts and Contexts, Third edition, Thomson.

Labs

One session each week will meet in the Calculus/Engineering Computer Lab in the Gardner Steel Conference Center (GSCC 126). In the labs, you will work in teams of two or three on computer assignments and projects, using the computer mathematics system Maple. Your lab projects will be submitted electronically over the campus computer network.

Lab assignments will be submitted by teams, rather than individually, but the preparation of lab assignments should consist of a combination of individual work, discussion, and consolidation. It is recommended that each team member work at her own computer rather than clustering around a single machine. As you work, you should discuss your results with your teammates. Any difficulties that arise should be resolved by discussion within your group. If you really get stuck, there will be people around who can help to point you in the right direction, but they won't do the work for you.

You won't always complete your computer work in the scheduled lab time. When that happens, you'll have to make arrangements with your teammates to complete your work before the due date. If you need to move from one team to another during the semester, you can do so. Ask your lab TA for assistance.

Recitations

Once a week you will meet with your TA in a classroom (without computers) to go over problems related to the material covered the previous week.

Homework

Each week, you will be assigned some problems to write up and hand in. These assignments will be graded and returned. In addition, you will be provided with a list of practice problems to do, even though they will not be handed in and graded. Exam problems will sometimes be modeled on these practice problems.

Grades

Your course grade will be determined as follows: Some sections may deviate slightly from this recipe. Any deviations will be announced by your instructor at the beginning of the term.

Final Exam Policy

All day sections will take a departmental final exam at a time and place to be scheduled by the registrar. Evening sections will meet through final exam week, and the final exam will be given during the last one or two scheduled class periods.

Final Grade Policy

Your final grade should not exceed your final exam grade by more than one letter grade.

Exam Dates

See the class schedule for the dates of the two midterm exams. The date, time and room of the final exam will be announced by your instructor.

Materials

In addition to the textbook, you will need at least a scientific calculator. Any calculator with logarithms, exponentials, and trigonometric functions will do. Programmability is desirable but not essential. A graphing calculator, such as the TI83 or TI86, is better still.

Computer Accounts

As a University of Pittsburgh student, you should already have a Pitt computer account. You will need to know your username and password to access the computer resources in the lab.

In addition to your Pitt account, you'll need an account on the calculus file server. Your lab TA will help you set up your account during your first lab session. If for some reason you do not get your server account during the first lab session, you can do it on your own from any computer with access to the World Wide Web. Consult the calculus home page http://calculus.math.pitt.edu for instructions.

Getting Help

Tutoring

Walk in tutoring is available in the Calculus/Engineering Lab and in the Math Assistance Center (MAC) on the third floor of Thackeray Hall. Tutoring hours will be posted outside the lab and the MAC, as well as on the web at http://calculus.math.pitt.edu.

You should go the Calculus/Engineering Lab for help with computer work, and to the MAC for assistance with pencil and paper work.

Computer Tutorials

There is on-line reference material on Maple available on the file server in the form of tutorial worksheets on various subjects. One worksheet that you may find particularly useful is the tutorial quickref.mws, which contains a summary of the Maple commands you will use most frequently. Until you become proficient with Maple, you may want to keep this worksheet open for reference as you work on your computer assignments. Other tutorials go into greater detail on specialized topics. You'll find a link to this material on the calculus web page, inside your calculus class' home page at http://calculus.math.pitt.edu. (Click the "My Class" link in the main index once you have registered, and then "Maple Help" in the class index.)

Office Hours

Your instructor will announce his office hours.

Maple

Maple is a system for doing mathematics on a computer. It allows you to perform numerical calculations and algebraic manipulations, and to produce high quality graphics to interpret your work visually.

You will do your work in Maple worksheets, which allow you to integrate results of Maple calculations with fully word-processed text to produce a polished report.

Once you become proficient with Maple, you should find it useful for other courses.

Academic Integrity

Cheating/plagiarism will not be tolerated. Students suspected of violating the University of Pittsburgh Policy on Academic Integrity will incur a minimum sanction of a zero score for the quiz, exam or paper in question. Additional sanctions may be imposed, depending on the severity of the infraction.

On homework, you may work with other students or use library resources, but each student must write up his or her solutions independently. Copying solutions from other students will be considered cheating, and handled accordingly.

Disability Resource Services

If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and the Office of Disability Resources and Services, 216 William Pitt Union (412) 624-7890 as early as possible in the term.