Math 233 Homework Policy


         Homework assigments will be distributed during lectures on Mondays and will be due the following Monday.  Homework should be turned in to the instructor during class, not put in a mailbox or slipped under an office door.   The assignments will involve a mixture of computer graphics problems to be done using MATLAB and problems to be worked out by hand and neatly written up.  Multiple pages must be stapled together; paper clips and paper folds are ineffective and lead to pages getting lost and receiving no credit.
 
         Every MATLAB generated graph must have your name included as the beginning of the Title portion of the graph.  Graphs on which a name is handwritten will not be graded.  Each page of hand written problems should have your name legibly written in the upper right hand corner.  Please use only 8.5 x 11 inch paper. You may write on both sides.

         COLLABORATION: You are encouraged to form groups to study the material and to work on homework problems. This course will follow the guidelines set down under "Statement of Student Academic Integrity" on page 23 of Course Listings Spring 2002. The rule is, that any work you hand in must be your own. This means that even if someone else has shown you how to do a problem, you must then write up your homework on your own. At the end of the paper acknowledge all the people with whom you worked on any problem of the assignment, in accordance with guideline 2 of the academic integrity statement. Suspected violations of these guidelines will be referred to the Committee on Academic Integrity.
 
         Each of the 12 homework assignments will be worth 30 points. Your course homework score H will be the sum of these scores divided by 12.   Graders will be urged not to bother to read submissions which are unusually messy or have poor penmanship.

         In addition to the above-mentioned weekly assignments, there are daily recommended exercises which are not to be turned in.  These are listed on the Lesson Schedule for the entire semester.  You should attempt to do these exercises prior to class on the day mentioned and ask your instructor to go over any questions you may have concerning them. You should regard these as a minimal set of exercises for each section. Many of you will need to do more. Exam questions will be very similar to these suggested exercises and to homework problems.
 
 

General Suggestions on Recommended Exercises

        It's essential that you try to do as many of the recommended problems as possible, because

        Each day some of the recommended problems are routine "drill" exercises.  There are certain basic techniques in calcuus that should become complely mechanical procedures for you:  procedures you can do "with your spine" rather than your brain. Other problems require more thought. Sometimes you'll think that you can do a problem but get stuck if you actually try to write down the details. It's important to write out neat careful solutions for yourself.. It's good to organize these in a separate notebook or file folder. You'll appreciate having them in one place when you want to review, especially if you can read them easily and don't have to work to decipher later what you did a few weeks earlier.

        After you finish and write up a solution, go back and talk to yourself (or others) about the problem.  For example, ask  "What are the main ideas involved?",  "What's involved with this problem that puts it in this section of the book?", "Why couldn't I have done this problem last week?",  "Is there some other way to solve the same problem?" You can learn much more by solving the same problem in a different way, if possible, than by solving several problems all in more or less the same way.

        In the same vein:  if a problem seems hard, don't give up and turn immediately to the solutions manual.  You can often learn a lot more by spending hours (perhaps not all at once!) grappling with a hard problem than by working many simpler problems in the same amount of time.

        The "Principles for Problem Solving" in the text (pp. 87 ff.) may be helpful.  They're not magic, but they can help you organize your thoughts.  At the end of each chapter, the section "Focus on Problem Solving" illustrates how to apply these principles to some harder problems.

        The answers to odd-numbered problems are in the back of the textbook.  The Student Solutions Manual, containing more complete solutions to odd-numbered problems, is available in the bookstore.  If you're interested, consider sharing a manual with one or more friends to save money. We actually recommend against more than a casual use of the Solutions Manual: students become too dependent on it and don't develop confidence in their own work. You and your friends should usually be able to confirm solutions by comparing your work.  Moreover, convincing friends that your solution is correct, or becoming convinced by their alternative solution, helps teach the skills of communicating mathematical arguments.

        A daily lesson schedule Daily Reading and Homework Problems is part of the syllabus. We will try to follow it fairly closely.  You will probably find the lectures more valuable if you read the assigned material and attempt some of the problems before coming to class. There may be modifications to the assignment list as the course moves along, so you might want to print out a new copy of it immediately after each exam.