Josh Guffin - Teaching

Contact information Instructor Name Josh Guffin Office DRL 3C7 Office hours Monday — 1pm-2pm Thursday — 12.30pm-1.30pm Phone 86219 Email guf...@math.upenn.edu TA Name Ying Zhang Office DRL 4E14 Office hours Tuesday — 5.30-6.30pm Thursday — 5.30-6.30pm Phone 85973 Email yin...@sas.upenn.edu

Meeting information Lecture Location DRL A5 Days MWF Time 12-1pm Recitation Times §201 Tuesday 8.30-9.30am §202 Tuesday 9.30-10.30am Location DRL 3C4 Times §203 Thursday 8.30-9.30am §204 Thursday 9.30-10.30am Location DRL 2C4

When emailing, please add "Math 115" to the subject line — your mail is more likely to be seen quickly in this way.

A comprehensive syllabus, listing both the textbook as well as a list of core problems is available here. We will use the books

1. Calculus, 6th Ed. by James Stewart
2. Schaum's Outline Series: Probability, 2nd edition by Seymour Lipschutz
3. Linear Algebra by Jim Hefferon

Please note that even though the syllabus lists the Maple lab manual as a required textbook and claims that Maple will be covered, we will not be using it. Our course will cover the following sections

		Topic		Sections
Stewart		Partial Derivatives		15.1, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 15.7, 15.8
		Multiple Integrals		16.1, 16.2, 16.3
Lipschutz		Set Theory		1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6
		Techniques of Counting		2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7
		Introduction to Probability		3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.5
		Conditional Probability and Independence		4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6
		Random Variables		5.1, 5.2, 5.5
		Binomial and Normal Distributions		6.1, 6.2, 6.3
		Markov Processes		7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6
Hefferon		Solving Linear Systems		I.1, I.2, I.3
		Reduced Echelon Form		III.1, III.2

Please see the calendar tab for reading assignments. We will aim to cover 1.5 section per lecture on average.

If you feel like you're getting behind in the class, you probably are — don't wait until it's too late to seek help! If you receive a low score on the first exam, it's too late. You can avoid this by taking advantage of the many resources available.

The easiest way to make sure you're not getting behind is to ask lots of questions in recitation. Learning mathematics is an active process — you have to grapple with new concepts, not just sit on the sidelines. You should also take advantage of office hours. In addition to these resources, several forms of free Math 115 help are available at Penn.

• Tutors are available during most evenings of the week at the various help centers on campus
• Online help is available after 9 PM through Blackboard (on the plenary discussion boards).
• Sunday Night Reviews occur weekly in DRL A1, from 7-9pm. See the schedule for complete details.
• General tutoring is available through Penn's Tutoring Centre
• Students with disabilities may receive assistance through the Student Disabilities Services.
• Study-skills courses may be taken through the Office of Learning Resources

A complete list of available resources as well as advice for students with more serious difficulties are available at the Math department's Calculus Help at Penn webpage.

General Policies

The Pennbook describes general policies every course at Penn. I would particularly draw your attention to the sections on academic integrity (cheating), secular and religious holidays, and students with disabilities.

Homework

This course will have three types of homework: preparatory, practise, and mini-exam.

• Preparatory. A reading assignment for the material to be covered in lectures will be assigned each day. Consult the calendar (click the tab above) for each day's preparatory assignments.

• Practise. A collection of problems for practise will be assigned each Friday. Although these problems will not be graded, they will be the primary topic of discussion in your recitation sections: your TA will review the problems and answer any questions you have about them. You are encouraged to solve these problems in their entirety, as they are potential examination material.

  Practise problems will be selected for their relevance to the course — any problems from the book that are not assigned or not in the list of Core Problems on the syllabus should be considered outside the scope of the course and ignored. To reiterate, you are expected to be able to complete all assigned and core problems.

• Mini-exam. Each week you will be asked to complete three problems related to the material covered in lecture that week. These questions are to be handed in for a grade, and should be treated as practise for the exam. Please complete them after completing the practise problems.

  To get the most out of the mini-exam problems, complete them under "exam conditions": set 18 minutes as a time limit (you will be allotted an average of six minutes per problem during exams), and work the problems without consulting the book or notes. If you can answer them correctly, you can consider yourself to have mastered the material for the week. If not, you may wish to practise more.

  It goes without saying that you should check and correct your work before turning it in for a grade, and that the mini-exam should be completed on your own.

  ABSOLUTELY NO LATE MINI-EXAMS WILL BE ACCEPTED

Quizzes and Exams

• Quizzes. Each week in recitation you will have a ten-minute quiz involving one problem from the practise problems. There are NO MAKE-UP QUIZZES.

• Worksheets. Each week in recitation you will complete a collection of problems in collaboration with other students. These problems are not the kind that would appear on an exam, and are meant to broaden your understanding of the course topics. Although they will not be graded, your consistent participation will result in your two lowest quiz scores being dropped. Because of their collaborative nature, if you are more than 5 minutes late to discussion, you will not be able to take the quiz.

• Midterm Exams. There will be three non-cumulative midterm examinations. These tests will be multiple-choice and feature ten problems similar to those appearing in the weekly mini-exams. The exams will last for sixty minutes, so that you will have an average of six minutes per problem.

  • Exam 1 — 11 February, 2011
  • Exam 2 — 18 March, 2011
  • Exam 3 — 13 April, 2011

  The exams will furthermore be in-class and have been scheduled around holidays of major religions, so there are absolutely NO MAKE-UP EXAMS. If you cannot attend one of these exams for religious reasons, you must let me know within the first two weeks of class.

• Final Exam. During the finals period, a twenty-question two-hour cumulative and comprehensive exam will be given.

Late-work policy

To reiterate, late work will not be accepted for any reason. Those needing to miss an assignment for religious reasons will have that assignment's score replaced with the average of like assignments at the end of the course. Note that you must inform me of any potential conflicts within the first two weeks of class.

All work will be due as follows:

• Mini-exams: every Friday other than exam weeks
• Quizzes: during recitations
• Midterm exams: see above.

Grading

Grading manifesto — each mini-exam problem will be graded out of one on the following scale:

Each quiz will be graded on the following scale:

Your final numerical grade will be computed as

At the end of the course, a curve will be fixed and used to assign a final letter grade. Typically, the curve is such that out of the entire group of students taking math 115 (all sections) there are 35% A, 35% B, 29% C, 1% D (or F).

Although we cannot tell a priori what a numerical grade will correspond to, the idea behind the letter grades is roughly as follows:

• A — The student has mastered all basic concepts and can apply them with little effort
• B — The student has mastered all basic concepts
• C — The student has mastered more-or-less half of the basic concepts
• D — The student has mastered a few basic concepts
• F — The student is indistinguishable from someone who has never taken the course

To view the Mathematica notebooks (the .nb files), you can use the free Mathematica Player. You will also need to have the notebook CurvesGraphics6.m in the same directory to view the notebooks that reference it.

Homework Guidelines

You are required to turn in your solutions to the weekly mini-exam questions into your TA's mailbox (located in the mathematics office, DRL 4W1). These are due by 5pm on the Friday after they are assigned. Late assignments will not be accepted for any reason — since the office is locked at 5pm, you will not even be able to turn in late work. Due dates may only be changed for individuals with religious obligations, as outlined in the Pennbook.

The practise problems are for your own edification and will be returned ungraded if handed in. A listing of assigned problems along with due dates appears below. You are encouraged to help each other with the homework problems but you are required to write your own solutions for the mini-exam problems.

The point of the mini-exam questions is to familiarize you with the style of questions that may appear on the exam. Therefore, you will get the most out of the mini-exams by initially attempting the problems under "exam conditions": with an 18 minute time limit and without consulting the book or notes. Of course, you should check and correct your work before turning it in for a grade.

Homework Assignments

Worksheets

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7

You can download a collection of old exams.

General information

The midterm exams will be multiple choice, and will each be scored out of 100 possible points. In particular, the following rules will apply to the exam:

1. No calculators permitted.
2. One sheet of (8.5in x 11in) paper is permitted, with handwriting on both sides.
3. There is no penalty for guessing, but credit may not be given if there is no work shown.
4. No partial credit will be given.

Once the exam is finished, you may check back here for a copy of the exam with solutions

Exams

Exam 1 was held on Friday, 11 February 2011. It covered chapters 15 and 16 of Stewart, excluding sections 15.2 and 15.6. Solutions are available.

Exam 2 was held on Friday, 18 March 2011. It covered sections 1-4 of the probability book. Solutions are available.

Exam 3 was held on Wednesday, 13 April 2011. It covered sections 5-7 of the probability book. Solutions are available. The average was 83 and the standard deviation was 10.5

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