• Math217
• Fall2007
• Syllabus

["Math217"] > [:Math217/Fall2007:Fall2007] > Syllabus

TableOfContents

Instructors

• [:BlakeThornton:Blake Thornton], Cupples I 204A, 935-6301, MailTo(blake AT SPAMFREE math DOT wustl DOT edu)

• [:RajMehta:Raj Mehta], Cupples I 207A, MailTo(raj AT SPAMFREE math DOT wustl DOT edu)

Teaching Assistant

• [:ScottCook:Scott Cook], MailTo(sacook AT SPAMFREE math DOT wustl DOT edu)

Office Hours

Help Sessions

Scott will hold 2 weekly review sessions starting 9/10. During exam weeks, these sessions will be used for exam review. During non-exam weeks, we will review the prior week's material and address any questions you have.

Web Page

• [:Math217/Fall2007:http://www.dehn.wustl.edu/washu/Math217/Fall2007]

Textbook

• [http://www.amazon.com/Differential-Equations-Computing-Modeling-4th/dp/0136004385/ Edwards and Penny, "Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems, Computing and Modeling", 4th edition].

• Aparently the bookstore has the book without Boundary Value Problems. We will make this work.
• We will cover most of the text (omitting parts/all of chapters 6,9,10)
• Unless otherwise stated (in class, for example) you are responsible to know the material in each section listed on the course schedule (even if examples and such are skipped in class).

Prerequisites

• Math 233 (concurrent is fine)

Outside help

• Cornerstone

• [http://www.math.wustl.edu/~blake/undergrads/ta_officehours.html Calculus Help Room]

• [:MathCourses/LowerDivision/GettingHelp:Calculus Help Desk at Cornerstone]

Note: the Calculus Help Desk and the Calculus Help Room are mainly for calculus students and calculus students will generally get priority there. That said, you can go to these locations for help and you will get help if the TAs are not too busy with calculus students.

Homework

You will have graded homework turned in every Tuesday. There will also be "suggested homework" that will not be collected. The homework collected is to be considered a bare minimum of homework that you should do. "A" students will generally do nearly every homework problem in the exercise sections (and will certainly do all of the suggested problems).

Your turned in homework will be graded on several factors including accuracy and neatness. It is your responsibility to make sure the grader can understand your work.

Calculators

NON graphing calculators are fine to use on exams and quizzes but graphing calculators are NOT allowed. You may use any calculuator for homework (but you may as well get used to a non-graphing calculator).

Exams

There will be three evening exams:

The general rule for the material to be covered on an exam is that the exam will cover material covered in class up to the Friday before the exam. This will be fine tuned a bit in class (so make sure you're in class paying attention during exam time).

Exams will consist of a number of multiple choice questions, whose answers you will mark on an answer card for reading by a scanning machine. A portion of each evening exam will consist of a free-response, lovingly hand-graded question, for which partial credit will be given. It is considered your responsibility to make your work clear and legible. If the grader is unable to easily find your answer and understand your work, you will miss points. (The final exam will consist entirely of multiple choice questions.)

Exam rooms will be assigned before each test. You can look up your room at [http://www.math.wustl.edu/seatlookup/ Exam seat lookup]

Exam Materials You should bring the following equipment to each exam:

• Your Washington U photo ID card
• Several pencils (with erasers)
• An approved calculator
• 3x5 note card with any helpful notes you care to make.

Please do not bring the following with you to your exam:

• Notes other than the 3x5 card
• Scratch paper (there is plenty of room to write on the test booklet)
• Non-approved calculators

After multiple choice portion of the exam has been graded (usually the next day), there will be a limited period of time during which you can look at the papers in the Math office to raise questions about mismarked cards and similar issues. After this holding period your exams will be returned to you (possibly in the hallway in Cupples I). The day after the exam (usually between noon and 4PM), scores for the multiple choice portion of the exam can be found here: [http://www.math.wustl.edu/mathlookup/ Exam Scores] Exam grades (with the handgraded grades) can be looked up on [https://telesis.wustl.edu/ Telesis]

Missed Exams

Legitimate excuses for missing an exam (verified illness, serious family emergencies, etc.) in all calculus courses must be approved, in advance, by [:BlakeThornton:Professor Blake Thornton]. An unexcused absence results in a score of "0" on the exam in question.

If you are excused from one of the in-semester exams, you will not be given a make-up test. Instead, the method of "multiple linear regression analysis" will be used to estimate your missing score. The method is rather complicated (for details take one of our excellent courses in linear statistics), but it takes into account your performance on the other three exams, and the class' performance as well. Hence you're not penalized if the exam you missed was one on which everybody else had high scores.

Students who have an excused absence from the final will take a make-up test, usually early in the next semester.

A conflicting travel reservation is NOT a valid excuse for missing the final.

Grades

A final score will be computed based on your homework and exams (three semester exams and a final). All exams will be weighted equally. The lowest exam score can be replaced by your final exam grade (effectively giving the final more weight). Homework will count for 25% of the final grade and the exams will count for 75% of the final grade.

Grades will be assigned no more strictly than the following scale

If you take the course P/F, "P" means a grade of C- or better