Section 6 Assessments and Grading
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.
- Tutorials (18%)
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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.Some of the tutorials will take the form of lab assignments. These will be computer-based, in the form of a Jupyter notebook. Each notebook will walk you through using Python to complete computational calculus tasks. No programming experience is required: we provide the code; you just have to run it and observe what happens.
- Online Homework (16%)
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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 Section 8 for details.Online homework will be due every Tuesday at 11:59 pm, beginning with Homework 1 on September 17th.
- Readiness assurance tests (6%)
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The readiness assurance tests (RATs) are intended as a diagnostic tool, to ensure you’re aware of what prerequisite material is expected for a unit, and whether or not you’re familiar with that material.Readiness assurance tests will take place in class on September 6th, September 27th, October 18th, and November 8th. There will also be a “syllabus quiz” on the first day of class using the same format as the RATs. The syllabus quiz does not count toward your grade.You will receive full credit for completing each RAT, regardless of your score on the test.
- Unit Tests (30%)
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Each of the four units will conclude with a test. The tests will take place in the Testing Centre. Each test will have several multiple choice questions, which will focus primarily on conceptual understanding, and two written questions, which will be completed on the Testing Centre attendance sheet, and collected by Testing Centre staff.
- Final exam (30%)
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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.Final exams are scheduled by the Registrar’s Office toward the end of September. I will post an announcement on Moodle once the exam timetable is available.
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+ | 98-100 |
| A | 92-97 |
| A- | 89-91 |
| B+ | 86-88 |
| B | 80-85 |
| B- | 77-79 |
| C+ | 74-76 |
| C | 68-73 |
| C- | 65-67 |
| D+ | 60-64 |
| D | 50-59 |
| F | 0-49 |
Other grading policies.
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Due dates.Homework 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.)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.
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Revisions.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. -
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Dropping lowest grades.For unit tests and RATs, your lowest grade will be dropped. 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 try to reschedule it for you. If you miss a test completely, it will count as the lowest grade that is dropped.
