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.
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 my 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
All of our classes will involve synchronous instruction. If necessary, this will take place online, but we hope to do most of it in person. We meet Monday and Wednesday at 3:00 pm, and the assigned classroom is SA7212. There is also a tutorial, which meets every Friday at 1:30 pm in UHall D632.
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, corresponding to the 4 chapters we expect to cover.
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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.
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
I don’t expect you to get everything right on your first attempt. Instead, most work that you submit will be initially graded for feedback only. If your work for a problem doesn’t meet the standard for successful completion, you will be allowed to revise it and resubmit.
Your overall grade will be calculated from the following components, using the indicated weights.
- Online homework (15%)
- The homework 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. Homework sets will be due each Tuesday, but extensions will usually be granted. (Due dates can be considered as “best before” dates, as in, it will be best for you if you are done before the indicated date.)
- Tutorials (15%)
- In each week without a test, you will complete a short assignment during tutorial. These assignments can be done in groups, and you will be able to ask the tutorial instructor for assistance. Tutorial assignments will be given feedback, and graded as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Unsatisfactory tutorial assignments can be revised and resubmitted to receive a satisfactory grade.
- 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%)
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At the end of each of the four units, there will be a take-home test. The test will be provided via Crowdmark, and will be available from the end of class on Wednesday until the beginning of tutorial on Friday.These tests are open book, but are meant to be completed individually. Resources such as the textbook and your notes are allowed; resources such as your friend, or some guy you paid on the internet, are not. There will be a group test following each individual test, and there is a final exam, so you will not be doing yourself (or your team) any favours if you do not attempt the tests on your own.Revisions will also be accepted for any problems you get wrong on the unit tests.
- Final exam (30%)
- There will be a traditional final exam in the course, during the exam period. This will be an in-person exam, but it will be open notes.
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
- A note on 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, and satisfactory revisions will raise your tutorial grade to 100%.For test revisions, there will be a submission form available on Moodle. You may either:
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Submit a revision for one problem, in which case your revised grade will replace the original score, or
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Submit revisions for all problems, in which case each correct revision will earn you back 50% of the points originally lost.
Your revision must contain not only corrected work, but also a reflection on your original work:-
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?
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 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 reschedule it for you.
