Welcome to Mathematics 119, Fall 2014

Calculus I
Course Orientation and Syllabus
Bret Benesh HAB 17J bbenesh@csbsju.edu
Image is NooNoo studying calculus by Flickr user Dean Jackson, used under the Creative Commons license.
1 Welcome!
Welcome to Calculus I! Calculus is one of the great achievements in human history, and I am happy that I
get to share it with you. In some sense, calculus is the mathematics of change. The two main applications
of calculus are:
1. Finding instantaneous rates of change. For instance, we will nd how fast (and in what direction)
is something moving at a particular instant in time. This is dierent than average rates of change,
which you have previously seen. This idea corresponds to the slope of a tangent line.
2. What is the net change of something? For instance, we will nd how much farther away from me
is something now than it was before. This idea corresponds to the area between a function and the
x-axis.
In short, you are used to nding the slope and area for things that only involve lines; this course is
about nding slope and area for curvy things.
To do this, we will use a brilliant strategy: we will nd a bunch of slopes (or areas) using only lines,
and then nd a pattern. That pattern will tell us what the answer is for the slope of a curvy thing.
2 Oce Hours
None regularly scheduled. However, I encourage you to schedule appointments with me as neededI am
always happy to arrange a time to meet with a student. My schedule changes a lot, and I have found that
I need a process to make sure that everything goes smoothly. Here is the process for setting up a meeting:
1. Email me with a list of days and times when you can meet.
2. I will email a time that works for both of us.
3. We meet at that time.
Additionally, you can drop by my oce if you are near. In this case, I am not guaranteed to be free to
meet, but I often will be.
3 Contacting Bret
Email is by far the best way to reach Bret. I will reply promptly.
4 Online resources
There is a Moodle page for this course. Seek it out; read it often. Like every day after class.
The website www.wolframalpha.com will be useful in practicing. You can make up your own ques-
tions, and then check your answer with this website.
5 Textbook and Reading
We will be using Calculus by Jon Rogawski. You may nd it helpful to bring the textbook with you to
class for the rst half of the semester.
6 One Type of Typical Class
A sad fact of life is that there is not enough time to do everything one wants to do in one class. Yet most
topics require that one start by learning easier material relating to the topic before progressing to the more
dicult material. Because of this, a teacher needs to make a choice:
1. Either introduce a topic in class, do some of the easier work in class, and leave the harder work for
the students to do at home, or
2. Figure out a way for the students to do the easier work at home before class and use classtime to do
the harder work.
We are opting for the latter. You can expect to spend most of class time thinking about material you
have already read and discussing with your peers.
Teams: You will start each day by meeting with your team. You will be working with this team
throughout the semester, and there will be some bonus work that you can only do with your team.
7 How to study
Neuroscience is teaching us that there are good ways to study and bad ways to study. This is overly
simplistic, but still useful: you should only study if you are either (1) writing something down or (2)
debating with someone. Here are some specic examples of how to study and how not to study. These
DOs and DONTs are not specic to mathematicsthey appear to work in all subjects.
DO: Regularly quiz yourself. Make up a problem, see if you can solve it, and gure out what you did right
and what you did wrong. Do this for old material as well as new material. (The science seems to be
suggesting that testing is the best way of learning material).
DO: Read the assigned reading from the textbook once.
DO: While reading, try to solve examples before looking at the answers.
DO: Write up a short paragraph summarizing the main point of a chapter. Just make sure it is in your
own wordsdont copy or paraphrase from any sort of chapter summary that the textbook author
has written.
DO: Write up a short paragraph that summarizes what you learned during a class period.
DO: Describe to a friend what you have learned in class.
DO: Listen to a friend describe what you have learned in class. Be skeptical, and ask a lot of questions.
DO: Look through the textbook to nd answers to very specic questions (What is the denition of
continuity? How do you take the derivative of an exponential function?).
DONT: Re-read the textbook beyond the rst time.
DONT: Re-read your class notes.
DONT: Do nothing.
The rst two DONTs are to prevent you from wasting time; re-reading the textbook and your classnotes
is time intensive, yet does not help you learn much. Worse yet, it makes you more condent that you
understand the material without actually helping you understand it (the book seems more familiar, which
makes it seem like you are learning. But you arent). Also, I apologize for the double negative in the last
DONT.
One nal note: I speak from experience when I say that the DONTs are much more pleasant to do. It
is much more pleasant and much less confusing to re-read the textbook than to create and take a quiz. In
fact, most people feel that they actually learn more from re-reading the text as compared to creating and
taking a quiz. But this is a false condencestudies show that the people who quizzes themselves actually
did better on later quizzes (even though they felt like they didnt learn the material as well).
7.1 A note on reading the textbook
Dont just read it; ght it! Ask your own questions,
look for your own examples, discover your own proofs.
Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true?
What happens in the classical special case? What
about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof
use the hypothesis?
-Paul Halmos
Reading any sort of technical writing is dierent from reading something like a novel or Cosmopolitan.
For one, it will take you longer to read one page of mathematics than it will for you to read one page of a
novel or magazine article.
Here are some tips to help you read mathematics more easily:
1. As stated before, go slowly.
2. Focusdo not read while watching television/listening to music/checking email. Studies show that
no one does better while multi-tasking (a lot of people think they do better while multitasking, but
they are all wrong).
3. Read with paper and a pencil. Write you you need to understand a statement. Sometimes this means
seeing how the statement relates to a concrete example, and sometimes this means literally writing
down exactly what is in the book to help you focus on it.
4. Be active (Fight it!). Ask questions of the textbook, and see if you can answer them yourself. See
how statements relate to concrete examples. Summarize in your own words.
5. Do not skim. Much of what we read contains ller that is not essential to read in order to understand
the main point. This is not so in mathematicsalmost every word is important.
8 Course Pacing
We will move quickly through the textbook in the rst half of the semester. This will be uncomfortable,
but it will give time to digest all of the course material, since you will have seen all of the course material
by the end of October. We will spend the second half of the semester reviewing the material and going
into more depth (where needed).
This also has the advantage of seeing the material multiple times. Most mathematics is dicult to
understand the rst time through, but it is easier the second time. You will see most of the material 23
times this semester, and it will get easier each time.
9 Cooperative Learning
Several of the policies of this course have been set up to promote cooperative learning (as opposed to
competitive or individual learning). This may dier from what you are used to, so I will provide a brief
explanation as to why these policies are in place.
1. The research from the past 115 years overwhelmingly shows that students learn more in cooperative
environments than individual environments, which seem to be the norm at most colleges. Cooperative
learning does even better when compared to competitive rather than individual learning.
2. The research shows that the vast majority of students who have had true cooperative learning expe-
riences overwhelmingly prefer those experiences to individual or competitive experiences.
3. Cooperative learning is in keeping with the Benedictine values of this school. We seek the common
good...We integrate a commitment to the common good with respect for the individual...We call the
community together for counsel to make decisions.
Your teams are the main people you will be cooperating with.
10 Quizzes
In accordance with what cognative science says is the best way to learn, there will be a lot of low-stakes
quizzes this semester. The grading system is set up so that a quiz can never hurt your gradethe worst
it can do is to fail to help your grade.
I will provide you with the problems in class. You will do two things:
1. Do your best to solve the problem.
2. Determine which of the learning goals you met in trying to solve the problem; you will have a list of
all of the learning goals.
3. Each of the learning goals is associated with a short code (e.g. CD3); you will write the appropriate
code directly to the left of where you demonstrated the learning goal (there will be a margin provided
for you).
4. Circle exactly where you demonstrate the learning goal in your solution
5. Draw a line from that circle to your code.
We will call the process described in the last four steps tagging a learning goal.
Note that, because you need to determine which learning goals you met, you will not only have to do
the problem, but you will have to think about how you are doing the problem. This is a process called
metacognition, and it is associated with higher amounts of learning.
To get credit for the learning goal, you will need to do be specic about where you correctly met the
learning goal in a way that is relevant to the question. It is important that you are able to reect on what
you do; because of this, you will receive no credit for a learning goal that you have not tagged, even if it
is done correctly. The ultimate criterion for judging whether you get credit for a learning goal is whether
you demonstrated that you have achieved it to me.
You do not need to have the entire quiz question done correctly in order to get credit for a learning
goal; you can get partial credit for any learning goal you have successfully done prior to a mistake.
Your goal will be to successfully demonstrate that you have met each learning goal at least four times
this semester. Once you have done this, you can simply stop tagging the particular learning goal (or skip
the quiz question entirely, if you are certain that there are no other learning goals that you need in that
question). I will guarantee that you will have an opportunity to demonstrate each learning goal at least
twice as many times as you are required to do, so you have ample room for mistakes. However, you should
correct your mistakes as soon as possible.
To practice these, I suggest that you do the odd problems from the textbook (since the odd questions
have the answers in the back of the book). Another excellent way to study for the quizzes is to make
up problems on your own (they will be pretty standard) and check your answers using Wolfram Alpha
(www.wolframalpha.com).
Your grade can never go down by taking a quiz; the worst that can happen is that your grade will fail
to go up. Because of this, the course policy is that there are no make-up quizzes. You will have many
times to demonstrate each learning goal, so missing any one quiz will not hurt your grade.
Most of the quizzes will be done individually, except . . .
10.1 Bonus Team Homework
. . . there will be several Bonus Team Homework assignments throughout the semester (roughly one per
week for the beginning of the semester). This will be a quiz-like homework assignment that I give you on
a Tuesday. The homework will be due the following Tuesday, so you will have one week to do it. You are
strongly, strongly encouraged to work with your team both on how to do the problems and how to tag
the problems. When the Bonus Team Homework is due, I will collect all of your teams homework, select
one homework assignment at random from your team, and grade only that single assignment. Everyone
on the team who submitted a homework assignment will get credit for what is in that randomly-selected
assignment; because of this, you should be working with your team to make sure that everyone in your
team is doing quality work.
You may apply your credit from the Bonus Team Homework to each learning goal once; in other words,
one of the four required demonstrations can be from Bonus Team Homework, and at least three need to
be from a quiz.
One quick note: I encourage everyone to work with their team in learning how to do the problems, but
this must be done in a certain way to avoid getting in trouble with our Academic Dishonesty Policy: you
should learn how to do the problem with other people, but then go and write up your solution on your own.
In particular, you should never copy down any portion of anyone elses work. If you copy down any portion
of anyone elses work, you are in violation of the Academic Dishonesty Policy; the typical punishment for
a rst oense is failure of the course.
11 Instant Feedback Tests (IFTs)
For the rst half of the semester, we will having regular multiple choice tests. You will need a web browser
in order to do this, so please plan on bringing a device to class. Here is the process:
1. You will take the multiple choice test on your own. You will not receive the correct answers after
answering a question in this portion of the test. This is the individual portion of the exam.
2. You will take the exact same multiple choice test with your team. You must agree as a team on your
teams answer. Once you answer a question, you will get immediate feedback about whether your
team chose the correct answer. If you get the question wrong, you may keep making selections until
you get it correct (although your grade goes down with each incorrect answer). This is the team
portion of the exam.
3. Your team will have the opportunity to contest any of answers to the questions. If you make a
convincing argument that your answer is correct, I will happily give your team full credit. You may
use any resourcetextbook, internet, whateverto determine whether you should contest an answer.
This is the appeals portion of the exam.
Your IFT grade will be determined by summing the number of correct answers from your individual
portion and team portion, and then subtracting the number of incorrect answers from the team portion
(recall that you can have more than one incorrect answer per question on the team portion), and nally
dividing by the total number of questions in the individual and team portions to get percentage. Your
semester grade will be determined by the semester percentage of your individual IFTs) times a Peer
Assessment multiplier (see below).
12 Peer Assessment
The ability to work within a team is an important skill, and you will have input on how your teammates
do multiple times during the semester. This is an assessment of how your teammates work in a team, not
on how much mathematics they know.
There will be multiple times during the semester where you will evaluate your teammates. Each time,
you will be given 100 points to distribute among your teammates (but you will not give any points to
yourself). You should distribute more points to your teammates who worked better in a team, and fewer
points to those who did not work as well in the team (You will additionally be required to oer qualitative
feedback on what each teammate does well and how each teammate can imporve, but this will not be
incorporated into the semester grades).
For each assessment, your assessment grade will be the sum of the number of points your teammates
distributed to you; the average points will always work out to be 100, although better teammates will have
higher scores (maybe 105 or 110) while worse teammates will have lower scores (maybe 90 or 95).
For your semester grade, we will take your average Peer Assessment Grade (which will be close to 100),
and multiply your IFT grade by that percentage. Here are a couple of examples if you average 80% on the
IFTs for the semester::
If you receive an average of 100 for the Peer Assessments for the semester, then your semester IFT
grade will be 80% 1.00 = 80%.
If you receive an average of 110 for the Peer Assessments for the semester, then your semester IFT
grade will be 80% 1.10 = 88%.
If you receive an average of 90 for the Peer Assessments for the semester, then your semester IFT
grade will be 80% 0.90 = 72%.
13 Proof Problems
There will be several Proof Problems assigned during the semester. These are optional problems (see the
grading section below) that are intended to give you an idea of what is typical of later mathematics classes.
You may submit one Proof Problem per class period for feedback. I will give you feedback on how to
improve your proof. Once the proof is of a good quality, you will be told that you are done with that
particular problem.
Submitting a Proof Problem can never hurt your grade. The worst thing that can happen is that it
will fail to help your grade.
14 Projects
You are encouraged, but not required to do a project for this course (see the grading below). Your job is
to nd a challenging problem (I will provide you with some possible problems), try to solve the problem,
create a poster for it, and be prepared to answer questions about the topic and poster. You will be required
to provide a brief video summary of your progress two weeks before the poster session day, which will be
during a class toward the end of the semester.
Doing a project can never hurt your grade; the worst it can do is to fail to help your grade.
15 Examinations
The nal exam will be
(for the 8:00 section) on Thursday, December 11th from 8:0010:00 am in our usual room.
(for the 10:20 section) on Thursday, December 11th from 1:003:00 pm in our usual room.
16 Grading
There will be ve components to your semester grade:
Quizzes (including Bonus Team Homework)
Instant Feedback Tests
Peer Assessment
Proof Problems
Project
Exams
17 Semester Grades
First, a brief rationale on how the criteria for grades are determined. The grades are designed so that
a student who has a very basic grasp of the big ideas of the course will receive at least a D; a student
who also has a good conceptual understanding will receive at least a C; students who additionally have
good computation and symbol manipulation skills will receive at least a B; and students who additionally
demonstrate an ability to learn independently will receive an A. The reverse also holds in each case: a
student who does not have a good conceptual understanding who expecdt to receive a grade strictly lower
than a C (and similarly for grades of D, B, and A).
Here is how your semester grade will be determined:
To get a D for the semester:
You successfully met the D-level Quiz Learning Goals
Your semester grade for the IFTs is at least 50%.
To get a CD for the semester:
You must fulll all of the requirements to get a D.
You successfully met the CD-level Quiz Learning Goals
You get a least a D on the nal exam.
To get a C for the semester:
You must fulll all of the requirements to get a CD.
You successfully met the C-level Quiz Learning Goals
Your semester grade for the IFTs is at least 60%.
You get a least a CD on the nal exam.
To get a BC for the semester:
You must fulll all of the requirements to get a C.
You successfully met the BC-level Quiz Learning Goals
You get a least a C on the nal exam.
To get a B for the semester:
You must fulll all of the requirements to get a BC.
You successfully met the B-level Quiz Learning Goals
Your semester grade for the IFTs is at least 70%.
You get a least a BC on the nal exam.
To get a AB for the semester:
You must fulll all of the requirements to get a B.
You successfully met the AB-level Quiz Learning Goals
You must successfully complete three of the six possible Quiz problems for Goals A1 and A2 (Any-
where problems do not count).
You must be successful on at least half of the Proof Problems.
You must have successfully done a project.
You get a least a B on the nal exam.
To get a A for the semester:
You must fulll all of the requirements to get a AB.
You successfully met the A-level Quiz Learning Goals
Your semester grade for the IFTs is at least 80%.
You must be successful on all of the Proof Problems.
You get a least a AB on the nal exam.
18 Disabilities Requiring Accommodation
If you require accommodations or assistance for a documented disability, please contact Bret as soon as
possible. It is best to do this well in advance of the rst exam so that we can make whatever arrangements
are needed.