Section 2 Essential course information
This section covers essential course information, including the meeting times, textbook, and grading scheme.
Subsection 2.1 Course website
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Links to important resources, like this syllabus, and the textbook.
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Links to key course activities, including the online homework, and the discussion forum. (The links will log you into those services automatically.)
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Details about your grades and assessments.
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A weekly topics schedule.
The weekly topics schedules will be key to staying on top of your course material. Every week you can expect to receive details on readings, videos, homework, and assessments, as well as information on what will be taking place in class, and how to access those classes.
In case there’s a day when Moodle isn’t working properly and you need access to course materials, you can find some of them (like this syllabus) on Sean Fitzpatrick’s personal website. The textbook for this course (and many others) is available on our Open Textbook Server.
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www.cs.uleth.ca/~fitzpat/teaching.html3
opentext.uleth.caSubsection 2.2 Scheduled classes
This year’s classes are as follows:
- Math 1560A
- Tuesday and Thursday, 12:00 - 1:15 pm, in E690.
- Math 1560B
- Tuesday and Thursday, 4:30 - 5:45 pm, in SA6008.
We will be using a team-based learning (TBL) approach for the course. The TBL cycle works as follows:
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The course will be divided into 4 units.
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The first class of each unit consists of a “readiness assurance process”:
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You will be given a list of prerequisites needed to understand the unit, and resources to review those prerequisites.
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Class will begin with an “indvidiual readiness assurance test”. This will be a multiple choice test to check your understanding of the prerequisite material.
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This test is immediately followed by a “team readiness assurance test”. The team test is identical to the individual test, but done in teams.
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Once the team test is complete, teams will be asked to report their results, and we will discuss any areas where further review might be needed.
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Note that there are no marks associated with the readiness assurance tests. They are strictly diagnostic. However, you will be asked to complete a brief reflection after each one, and you will earn credit (i.e. free marks) for doing so.
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The remaining classes for each unit will consist of working on problems in teams. Problems will be presented in class, one at a time. For each problem, there will be time to work on it in teams, followed by time for discussion.
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In-class problems are again not for marks. They replace the usual lecture-based instruction. Students are welcome to use the textbook (and the videos it contains) to prepare in advance, or to review after the fact, but the readiness assurance process and in-class problems are meant to be sufficient for a student to learn the material.
There is also a weekly tutorial. Tutorials take place on Wednesday, at 8 am, 11 am, 1 pm, or 3 pm, depending on your section.
You will use tutorials to work on the basic computational skills essential to success in calculus. Tutorial assigments can be done in groups, and grading will focus on feedback. In some weeks, you will be introduced to some computational tools such as Python or GeoGebra. See Section 7 to see which weeks these are, so you know when to bring your laptop, if possible.
Subsection 2.3 Course textbook
Our course textbook is APEX Calculus, by Greg Hartman. This book is an open education resource (OER). That means that the book is fully free, both in terms of cost, your freedom to use and share the book however you see fit.
The book is availabe in both HTML and PDF formats. The HTML version is recommended, as it has some nice interactive features, and works well on any device, including smartphones. The PDF is available in black and white (if you want to print it) and colour (if you want electronic access to an offline copy of the book).
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opentext.uleth.ca/apex-standard/part-calculus-I.htmlSubsection 2.4 Grading scheme
Traditionally Math 1560 has been a mostly skills-focused course: the focus was on learning how to compute limits and derivatives, and the tests mostly checked your proficiency in these skills. Our course will still cover these skills, through the online homework and tutorials. However, tests will focus more on conceptual understanding and problem solving, and our activities during class will be geared toward this approach.
The various graded components of the course are explained below. At first it will seem like there’s a lot to do! But most items are small, and many can be done during class time.
- Tutorials (15%)
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Every tutorial will involve an assignment to be completed. You will be encouraged to work on these problems (and submit) in groups. Evaluation will be strictly formative: you will receive feedback on the work that you submit, and a grade of 1 or 2.A grade of 2 indicates that you have done the work correctly, or that any errors are minor, and don’t indicate misunderstanding. A grade of 1 indicates that you’ve made mistakes that need to be corrected. We will do our best to return your feedback prior to the next tutorial. If you received a grade of 1, you will then have an opportunity to submit corrections. This can be done on paper, or during office hours. Successful submission of corrections will increase your grade from 1 to 2.
- Online Homework (15%)
- The homework, like tutorial, will focus on building fluency with the computational procedures of calculus. You can expect a new problem set every week. Homework will be delivered through the WeBWorK online homework system. See Subsection 4.1 for details.
- Readiness assurance tests (10%)
- As mentioned above, you will not directly receive a mark for the tests administered during the readiness assurance process (RAP). However, after each RAP you will be asked to complete a short reflection that will be graded for completion.
- Unit Tests (30%)
- Each of the four units will conclude with a test. The test will be open book. There will be a time limit, but you will have some flexibility in terms of when you choose to begin.
- Final exam (30%)
- There will be a standard, cumulative final exam during the exam period. The exam will be in person, but you will be allowed to bring a formula sheet and a calculator.
Each of the grade components above will be assigned a numerical score. These will be added to get a score out of 100. Your score out of 100 is converted into a letter grade according to the following table.
| A+ | A | A- | B+ | B | B- |
| 97-100 | 92-96 | 90-91 | 86-89 | 80-85 | 76-79 |
| C+ | C | C- | D+ | D | F |
| 72-75 | 65-71 | 62-64 | 58-61 | 50-57 | 0-49 |
Subsection 2.5 Other grading policies
- Due dates
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most due dates are flexible, and provided primarily for your benefit, to help with planning. (A course without deadlines can be a disaster for those who procrastinate.) One exception is the workshop activity before each test. Because we can’t begin the peer review portion of the workshop until the submission deadline passes, we have to have a deadline for the activity to proceed.A due date extension request form will be available via Moodle. If you need more time to complete an assessment, simply fill out the form. Unless you are contacted to say otherwise, you can assume that your request has been granted.
- Revisions
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For both unit tests and tutorial assignments, you will be invited to submit revisions for any incorrect work. Revisions must be submitted within one week of receiving your feedback. Tutorial revisions can be handed in during the following week’s tutorial. On any tutorial assignment, satisfactory revisions will raise your score to 100%.For test revisions, there will be a submission form available on Moodle. You may choose any one question on which you did not receive full marks, and submit a revision to your work. Note that you cannot revise a question that was left blank. There must be original work on which you received feedback for you to submit a revision.Your revision must contain not only corrected work, but also a reflection on your original work:
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What was incorrect on your previous attempt?
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What factors contributed to getting the question wrong?
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What have you learned in the meantime that changed your understanding of the question?
Your grade on the revised attempt will replace your original grade on that question.Note that you will not be able to submit revisions for the fourth test, since we will not be able to have feedback returned to you before the end of the semester, and we cannot ask for term work to be submitted during the exam period. -
- Dropping lowest grades
- For tests, tutorials, and online homework, your lowest two grades will be dropped. If you are unable to write one of the tests during the scheduled test window, please let me know and I will try to reschedule it for you. If you miss a test completely, it will count as the lowest grade that is dropped.
