Math 127, Fall 2010

Calculus I for the Life, Social and Managerial Sciences

Lectures: MWF, 9—10 AM, Duncker 101

Discussion Sections, TA’s: You must be enrolled in a discussion section; they are Thursday 9, 10, or 11 AM. They will be run by the course’s teaching assistant, Mr. Wei Deng (wdeng@math.wustl.edu). .

Help: Your TA, Mr. Deng, will hold office hours in the Lopata Calculus Help Room on Tuesdays, 10 AM-12.PM You can also get help in the Lopata Calculus Help Room or the Cornerstone Calculus Help Room whenever they are open. Just tell the person there that you need help. For a link with information on various ways to get help in Calculus go to www.math.wustl.edu/help.html

Content: We will cover Chapters 1-6 of the text Calculus and its Applications by Goldstein, Schneider, Lay and Asmar.

Instructor: Mark Feldman

Cupples I, Room 108D

mf@math.wustl.edu

935-8111

Office Hours: MW 10-11. If you want to make a definite appointment we can set that up before or after class or by e-mail.

Mathematics Department Office: Cupples I, Room 100, 935-6760.

Suggested Problems: From time to time, I will suggest problems during class that should help your understanding of the material. You do not need to turn these in, but you should do them.

Important Advice about Doing Problems: Sometimes it is important to do problems in order to familiarize yourself with, and practice, techniques. But one of the most important aspects of doing problems is to discover what you might not have fully understood. (Ever listen to someone explain something; think you understand; then get confused when you try to explain it to someone else? If so, that’s the idea.) In order to learn efficiently from doing problems make sure that if you don’t get the problem, you don’t just look up the answer or learn how to do it. You need to find out why you missed it so that if there is something you need to understand better you can fix that.

Advice about classroom participation: I assume everyone will participate all the time during class. Let me clarify. I will lecture some but I will not just lecture. Learning math includes learning new and better ways of thinking (at least about quantitative problems). It’s just like learning tennis which, of course, requires learning new ways of moving muscles. I can’t individually guide each of you through the process no more than a tennis coach can individually guide each person through an appropriate forehand. On the other hand, you won’t learn tennis very well if you don’t bring a racket with you and try to work through what the coach is showing the class. In a math class, you don’t even have to buy a racket and carry it around. You do need to bring an alert brain with you, though; then use it to think through ideas with me. That will be your most efficient way of learning this material when you combine it with study and practice.

WebWork: There will be 11 WebWork assignments (one per week except the weeks of midterm exams and Thanksgiving.) The assignments will be available at 9AM on Monday of the week, all answers must be submitted before 8PM on Thursday of that week, and the solutions will be available on Saturday morning. The first (short) assignment will be available Wednesday, September 1 and due on Friday at 8 pm. Homework will not be accepted late.

Quizzes: Most weeks there will be a short quiz at the beginning of the discussion section. The first quiz will be Thursday, September 17. Quizzes cannot be made up.

Exams: There will be three midterms and a final. Excused absences must be approved by Professor Blake Thornton, who will do so only in truly exceptional circumstances. (Exam dates are given below.)

Grades: There are 100 points. The homework (WebWork) will count as15 percent, based on 9 of 11 assignments; we drop the two lowest but with the constraint that they can’t be both of the last two; The quizzes are worth 5 percent, again we drop the two lowest but with the same constraint. The remaining 80 points will be based on the three midterms and the final, all weighted equally. (The final is not cumulative.)

The grading scale is: 90 or above an A- or better, 80 or above a B- or better and 65 or above a C- or better.

Important Dates:

Wednesday, September 1 First class.

Monday, September 6 Labor Day, no class.

Wednesday, September 22 First Midterm, 6:30—8:30 PM.

Friday, October 15 Fall Break, no class

Wednesday, October 20 Second Midterm, 6:30—8:30 PM.

Wednesday, November 17 Third Midterm, 6:30—8:30 PM

Wednesday, November 24 Thanksgiving Break, no class

Friday, November 26 Thanksgiving Break, no class

Monday, December 10 Last class.

Thursday, December 16 Final Exam: 10:30 AM—12:30 PM