MATH 311 Class Policies

• Office: DH 104
• Instructor: Kathleen Shannon, Ph.D.
• Phone: 410-543-6476
• Classroom: HS 111

Exams: There will be three in-class exams on 2/23, 4/8 and 5/6. The material covered by each exam will be announced in class. It is the student's responsibility to find out what announcements he/she missed by coming late, leaving early, or missing class. There will also be a final exam during the exam period. In general I do NOT give make-up exams. If you know that you cannot take an exam at the scheduled time you should discuss this wtih me ASAP. If an exam is missed for sufficient cause I will use the material I have, including the cooresponding portion of the final exam to construct your grade in a manner that I feel is fair and consistent. If an exam is missed for insufficient cause, the score will be 0 and will be used in computing your final grade.

Attendance: IS MANDATORY.

Office Hours: TBA . I am in my office much more often than this, call, stop by(If I'm not in my office look around the building (seminar room, other faculty offices, the computer lab etc.), or make an appointment. In a class of this character I expect to see most of you outside of class. (My class schedule is posted outside my office and should give you clues about other times I am probably available.) There are answering machines on both of my phones and I do not object to calls about homework or problems (grade inquiries should be made in person) at home at reasonable (avoid a.m.) times.

E-mail: I will use campus e-mail to communicate to the class. If you do not want to check your campus e-mail you should set up a rule to forward messages from me to your personal e-mail.

Messages: There are answering machines on both phones either listed above or on your cards. In addition you can send E-Mail to KMSHANNON@salisbury.edu.

Class Format: Participatory, students are expected to come to class prepared and to contribute to the discussion of topics. Predominantly there will be informal lectures with questions encouraged at appropriate times. However, there will also be in-class cooperative exercises and discussion as well.

Exam Grading Policy: All tests will be graded on a 100 point scale. The final grade will consist of a weighted average of the test grades, the final exam grade your project grade and your homework grade. I do not give make up tests. If you miss a test all bets are off and I assign a grade on the basis of the information I have, in whatever manner I feel is fair and consistent. If a test is missed for insufficient cause the grade is zero and will be used in your average! My grading scale is as follows:

I truncate averages and reserve the right to raise any grade on the basis of class participation or extenuating circumstances.

Grade reporting: For the most part you will have grades reported to you through returned work in class. However, I plan to post mideterm averages and final homework grades as well as final exam grades through MyClasses. Most probably this is the only use I will make of MyClasses for this course.

Project: See attached assignment description. The class will be divided into groups of 2 to 3 (changed becuse the class is small)(4 to 5) students to work on these projects.

Technology: It is the 21st century and we can not pretend it is 1900. Most modeling is done with the aid of computers. In addition to hand calculations and analytic methods for analysing differential equations we will investigate DE's using appropriate software which will be available either in campus labs or in the department tutoring center.

Homework: In addition to regularly assigned homework problems which will not be collected, there will be several "special" problems, generally due on Tuesdays. Actually the problem itself isn't special but your presentation of it will be. For this problem you should focus not only on solving it but on noticing how you solve it. Keep notes, while you are working on the problem, of anything that presents a block, any false starts, what makes you think of trying a certain approach, and whether and why (if possible) that strategy works or does not work. When you are finished working the problem (or alternatively, if you are convinced you will not be able to solve the problem) write a narrative telling the story, in detail, of the process you went through to reach that point. Your audience for this narrative is another student in the class, not a particular student but assume this student is confused by the problem and how you solved it, or that the student has not yet tried to solve this particular problem. Your narrative should be complete enough to explain to the reader how the problem was solved.