SUNY Geneseo Department of Mathematics
Thursday, January 24
Math 221 03
Spring 2019
Prof. Doug Baldwin
Please fill out Maddy’s questionnaire about times for supplemental instruction.
Could you come see me for office hours next Tuesday at noon? Yes, by looking at my Google calendar (see link in the online syllabus) you can see that I’m available then.
How about next Monday at noon? No, Google calendar shows that I’m in the middle of something else then.
Wednesday at 5:00? No, I don’t hold office hours after 5:00 (I generally need that time for doing things I can’t do while I am holding office hours).
Where do you get it? It’s online and free. Ideally get it from Canvas because that version has fewer typos. But it’s available (with typos) in more formats from Openstax.org.
Suppose you get 70% on the first exam. Roughly what letter grade is that? B
See representative grade distribution from last time I taught this course.
How late can a typical (i.e., 8-point) problem set be before its grade rounds to 0? Note that the penalty isn’t a straight 10-percent-of-original-grade-per-day thing, i.e., this example wouldn’t lose 0.8 points for the first day and another 0.8 for the second and so forth. It loses 0.8 points the first day, but then 10% of what’s left, i.e., 10% of 7.2, or 0.72 points, for the second day, and so forth. So an 8-point project that’s n days late gets a grade of 8 × 0.9n points. With this formula we can do some algebra and get
(Have a spreadsheet or calculator find the logarithm of 1/16, e.g., see the calculation at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18-HVKR-HSuJP3prx0cM5l4yDv9az406wYDw6B7EBsTI/edit?usp=sharing).
Bottom line: it’s almost always worthwhile in terms of the grade to turn things in, even if late, not to mention that apart from the grade it’s worth turning things in for feedback that might help with, e.g., similar problems on exams.
If you wake up with the flu on the morning of the final, what should you do? Let me know. I might want some confirmation that you have the flu, but this is a classic example of “circumstances beyond your control” that justify a make-up exam or extension
If you forget when the final is and miss it, what should you do? Don’t do this in the first place, it’s not beyond your control.
A bigger lesson: college life involves balancing responsibility (like remembering when exams are) with awareness that you aren’t on your own to deal with things that you aren’t responsible for (like catching the flu at a bad time). People here (professors, deans, counselors, etc.) will work with you to help you face things beyond your control if you ask.
Preview of central questions in calculus.
Context: think back to Galileo’s experiment and speed. How do you estimate instantaneous speed if you have a relationship between time and distance?
Read section 2.1 in the textbook.