You can only use what you remember!!

You can prepare for the "real world" of work.

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Students often ask, "Why do we have to do all this writing? Writing has nothing to do with mathematics!" The purpose of having you write explanations of your work is to improve your understanding. The more carefully and clearly you write your mathematics, the more likely it is to be correct, and the more likely you will be to remember it. Writing is a crucial part of the thinking process itself.

As you are solving problems in this course, remember that getting the "answer" is only one of the steps. Don't think of what you write as just showing your instructor that you have done the homework. Think of writing as part of the process of learning.

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During this course you will have to do a significant amount of group work. It is a growing trend in professional schools and business to have teams work on various projects. For the team homework in this course, each member of the team has an important role. These roles are to be rotated each week so that everyone has the opportunity to try each role. The roles are the scribe, the clarifier, the reporter, and the manager.

Scribe: The scribe is responsible for writing up the single final version of the homework to be handed in. This is the only set of solutions which will be accepted or graded. Each member of the group will receive the same grade as long as they work with the team. Students who do NOT participate will receive a zero. Whenever possible, your solutions should include symbolic, graphical and verbal explanations or interpretations. Diagrams and pictures should also be provided if possible.

Clarifier: During the team meeting the clarifier assists the group by paraphrasing the ideas presented by other group members, e.g. "Let me make sure I understand, the graph goes up ...". The clarifier is responsible for making sure that everyone in the group understands the solutions to the problems and is prepared to present the problems to the class if the team is called on.

Reporter: The reporter writes a record of how the homework sessions went, how long the team met, what difficulties or successes the team may have had (with math or otherwise). If there is disagreement about the solution of a problem, the reporter should present sketches of alternate solutions and explain the difference of opinion. The report should list the members of the team who attended the session and their roles. The report should be on a separate sheet of paper and the first page of the team's homework solutions. You may use a copy of the sample cover sheet for this purpose., if you like.

Manager: The manager is responsible for arranging and running the meetings. If the team has only three members, or if one of the four members cannot attend, the manager should also take one of the other roles. When the homework is returned, the manager sees that it is photocopied and distributed so that each team member's portfolio contains a copy of the corrected problems.

We recommend that all students go through the team homework tutorial at http://instruct.math.lsa.umich.edu/support/teamhomework/. This page is also linked from the course web page for your convenience.

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The goal of team homework is to ensure that everyone learns with and from the other members of the group. This means that when the work is completed and submitted, every member of the group should be able to explain how to solve all the problems. Here are some ideas that past students have come up with to help your group function at its full potential.

Schedule enough meetings, and don't schedule them at the last minute.

Go to every meeting and be on time. (Woody Allen says, 80% of life is just showing up.)

Do the reading and work on each of the problems before the group meets.

Find a way to express varying opinions in a friendly way.

Listen carefully. Don't interrupt and don't tune out.

Make sure that everyone is equally involved.

Avoid making others feel dumb.

Stay on the topic.

Don't rush to finish before everyone understands.

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In this course, it is absolutely essential that you do the reading assignments. Your experience with previous math courses may make it seem unlikely, since it may have been possible to avoid reading the text, yet do adequately well by copying down examples the instructor did in class and then doing the homework exercises by just changing the numbers in those "pattern examples" and the pattern examples given in the text. Also, older-style texts subtly encouraged students to skip the reading assignments by putting procedures for doing exercises in boxes, thereby essentially telling the students that "everything you really need to know to do the exercises can be found inside the boxes; you might as well skip reading everything else."

Unfortunately, this approach resulted in students being able to do the mechanical computations quite well, but having no real understanding of the material and no real ability to apply it in situations that are even a little bit different from that covered by the pattern examples. In essence, students were only being programmed like computers to do computations that computers can do faster and more accurately anyway. It is this deficiency in the old-style math courses that led to the national movement toward reformed courses, like this one, which stress understanding. This modern approach to learning requires new methods in the classroom emphasizing learning rather than lecturing, as well as new texts such as the one for this course.

The difference between the text for this course and an old-style math text is apparent from even a cursory scanning of the first chapter. If you open the text and just begin turning pages, you will probably be struck by the following:

1. The amount of text to be read outside of examples is much greater than in old-style books. Older books would typically have brief explanations, sometimes single paragraphs, followed by one or more pattern examples. This book has longer explanations that attempt to convey understanding of the concepts involved rather than just the mechanics of how to do computations.

2. The examples tend to be much longer than those in an old-style text, and they often arise from actual real-world problems.

3. The exercises, which also tend to be much longer than those in an old-style text, are often quite different from each other and from the examples in the text, and use real-world numbers that are not as "nice" as the made-up numbers in the shorter exercises typical of old-style texts.

Doing the exercises requires an understanding of the material in the text, not just the ability to change numbers in pattern examples. Also, your instructor will be counting on you to read the text, since he or she will not be lecturing very much and will be relying on you to have seen the material before you work with it in class. Like other courses outside mathematics (but perhaps unlike other mathematics you have taken), not every small point on which you will be tested will be covered by in-class examples. Since the reading is so very important, some hints on how to it might be helpful. You may find that slight variations on the following scheme will work well for you.

1. Plan to do the reading more than once, and do not make it an essential goal to understand everything in the reading the first time through it. The first reading should be devoted only to getting a general overview of the material in the section.

2. After the first reading, stop for a few minutes and attempt to summarize to yourself, in your own words, what the section is all about. Then immediately re-read the section.

3. During the second reading, make a serious effort to understand all of the material in the section. This does not mean to memorize it, but rather to understand all of the points before going on.

If you do not understand something during the second reading, put the book aside awhile and return to it later when your mind is fresher. If you still do not understand it after returning to it, ask your instructor or your homework group members about it. Do make sure you eventually understand all of the material. You will probably get tripped up in later reading, in doing the homework, or on test if you treat material you don't quite understand as "probably not all that important."

Do not get discouraged if some points require some time to understand. It is not uncommon to have to think about a point in a math test for a half hour (or more, for more complicated concepts) before it becomes clear what is really going on.

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Conflicts With Uniform Exams. The two uniform exams during the course of the semester are scheduled for 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. to make it possible for all students to attend, but we are aware that there can be conflicts with other scheduled academic activities such as a class or another evening test. If this happens, notify your instructor well in advance so that we can clear up the problem. Due to the nature of the final exam schedule, there are seldom conflicts between regularly scheduled final examinations. If a problem does occur, notify your instructor as early in the term as possible.

 

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The Grading System

Grades in this math course. All sections of this course use the same grading guidelines to ensure a fair, standardized evaluation process. Your grade in this course will be determined primarily by your work on the "uniform component," which is the same for all sections of the course. The majority of this component comes from your scores on the uniform exams. Your grade as determined by the uniform component may be influenced by the "section component" of the course, which includes your work in your class-section. In some cases, your section component may adjust your grade up or down (as explained below). In addition, there is a "gateway component" to your grade which may also adjust your grade downward. The details follow.

1. The uniform component. This includes two uniform midterm exams, a uniform final exam, and your scores on web homework. Each of the exams will be taken by all students in all sections at the same time, and are graded by all the instructors working together. Your uniform component score will be determined from your scores on each exam as follows:

Midterm Exam 1	25% of uniform component score
Midterm Exam 2	30% of uniform component score
Final Exam	40% of uniform component score
Web HW	5% of uniform component score

After each exam, a letter grade will be assigned to your uniform component score using a scale determined by the course coordinator specifically for that exam. We do not use the "10-point scale" often seen in high school courses in which scores in the 90's get an A, in the 80's get a B, and so forth; the level of difficulty of the exams will be considered. The scale for the uniform component score will apply to all students in all sections. The scale for final course grades will be set by the coordinator based upon the above percents for each component. Most students will receive the course grade assigned by that scale.

2. The section component. To help you learn the material, you will be given a variety of reading assignments, team homework, quizzes and other in-class activities. Your instructor will decide how the section component is determined for your particular section and grade the section work.

If, at the end of the term, your rankings on the section component and uniform component differ significantly from one another, your course grade will be examined to see if an adjustment should be made. If you have participated in section activities but your section component is significantly lower than your uniform grade, your course grade may be lowered by one third of a letter grade. Students who have not seriously attempted to contribute to the section component of the course (i.e., quizzes, team homework, etc.) may have their final course grade lowered by up to a full letter grade. If, on the other hand, you have struggled on an exam and your in-class performance is significantly higher than the uniform component grade, your instructor may in some cases adjust your grade upward by one-third of a letter grade. This raise is generally only given for students whose uniform component places them near the top (or at the "cusp") of a letter grade category. The majority of students will find that their in-class performance and their exam scores are quite reflective of one another. Thus, in the majority of cases, no adjustment is made to the uniform course grade.

The best way to gauge your in-class performance is to keep an eye on the median grade in your section for each assignment and quiz. It is not useful to compare quiz and homework grades with students from other sections, because instructors write their own quizzes and determine the grading rubric for homework in a section.

3. The gateway component. There will be one or two (depending on the course you are taking) online basic skills gateway test(s) which you need to pass by the deadline announced in the course schedule. These tests may be taken multiple times, and cover skills that every student who passes the course should have. Therefore, students who are keeping up with the course work can and will pass the gateway---if they start taking it early enough! You may practice each test online as many times as you like, and you may take a test for a score as often as twice per day without penalty until the deadline. Because the gateway tests cover skills that every student must have, the gateway tests do not raise your baseline grade; instead, if they are not passed by the deadline, your final grade in the course will be automatically reduced. Opening dates, deadlines and grade penalties will be announced in your class. All sections of your course have the same open/closing dates and penalties assigned to the gateway component.

Section averages. Course policy is that a section's average final letter grade cannot differ too much from that section's average baseline letter grades. This means that the better your entire section does on the uniform exams, the higher average letter grade your instructor can assign in your section. It is therefore in your best interest to help your fellow students in your section do well in this course. In other words, cooperation counts!

Grades at the university. Many students who come to the University of Michigan have to adjust themselves to college grading standards. The mean high school grade point average (recalculated using only strictly academic classes) of our entering students is around 3.6, so many of you were accustomed to getting "straight A's" in high school. Students' first reaction to college grades is often, "I've never gotten grades like these." However, a grade of 15/20 on a team homework assignment (which you might previously have converted to 75% - a high school C) may well be a good score in a college math course. Your own instructor is your best source of information on your progress in the class.

 

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Your Responsibilities As A Class Member

The classroom is place where all students need to be engaged in learning. This means that it cannot be a place for casual conversations, reading the newspaper, doing homework for other classes, etc. Be ready to concentrate on math and discuss the day's material.

Be respectful and polite. Listen to your instructor and your fellow students when they are talking.

In order to benefit from being in an interactive class, each student must come to class prepared. Come to class having done the assigned reading and attempted the homework problems.

Contribute to your homework team. Work on the problems ahead of time. Go to every meeting promptly and do your share to make sure that the meeting is valuable to everyone.

Be in your seat and ready to start when your class is scheduled to begin and remain until the class is dismissed.

 

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Academic Dishonesty

Students at the University of Michigan are expected to exhibit academic integrity. Each College has its own standards for treating cases of academic misconduct, but in all Colleges there can be serious consequences for violating the Code of Academic Conduct. Sanctions can include: suspension, disciplinary probation, and receiving a failing grade. Some examples of cheating, as stated in the LS&A Code of Academic Conduct, include:

• submitting work which has been previously submitted in another term or another section of the course.

• using information from another student or another student's paper or an examination which is supposed to be individual work.

• altering a test after it has been returned, and then resubmitting the work claiming that it was improperly graded.

 

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Forms

• Team Evaluation Form

• Math Team Homework Cover Sheet

 

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