MATH 1330: Precalculus
Fall 2012
Section 15813, SEC 100
Lecturer: Leigh Hollyer
Office: 617 PGH
Email:
Website: www.math.uh.edu/~dog
Mailbox: 641 PGH
Phone: do not contact me by phone, use email
Conference Hours: Friday 10am – noon in MathLab, 222 Garrison
or by appointment (make appointments by email, please)
First day: Friday Jan. 27 Last day: Friday April 27
Text: online: in your CourseWare account. Please buy and enter an Access Code as soon as possible.
Access code: Access Codes are purchased at The Book Store at the register. Once purchased, enter the code into the online form at casa.uh.edu by the deadline. Students who have not entered a valid access code by the deadline will be denied access to their course account and will not be able to submit coursework until they enter a valid access code. The deadline is the beginning of the third week of class.
ADA Policy: A current Student Accommodation Form (SAF) must be presented in a timely manner for accommodations to be approved. No retroactive accommodations will be provided.
This course is a “no calculator” course. No students are allowed to have them so
a calculator is not available as an accommodation because it would change the essential nature of the course and provide an unfair advantage.
Accommodations that are listed on your SAF that would NOT change the essential nature of a course or provide an unfair advantage may be approved (e.g. an extra set of class notes for lecture, testing at CSD, extended time*…). Please review these with me during the conference hours for the class (not immediately before or after a lecture).
*If you run over the agreed upon extended time you will be penalized in proportion to the amount over.
Academic Conduct: Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in this class. Failure to report a dishonest act is also categorized as “Academic Dishonesty” in the UH Student Handbook. If you notice a classmate committing a dishonest act, please talk to me about it. (See page 8 of the Student Handbook for more details on the UH Policy.)
Calculators: Calculators will not be allowed on any exam.
CASA Testing: is the Math Department testing center. It is in 221A Garrison. Students are not permitted to bring any personal belongings to the testing cubicle; the department is not liable for any lost or misplaced personal belongings.
A Cougar 1 id card is required to check in. Tests begin on the hour; arriving late will shorten the time you have to take a test; more than 10 minutes late and you won’t be seated…you may reschedule on a space available basis.
Reservations are required; the link to the reservations system is on the CourseWare homepage and on my homepage; or you may use the url: casa.uh.edu. Reservations should be made by midnight before the day the testing period begins.
There is NO “standby” provision; you may NOT hang around the Testing Center hoping to snag an unused spot. Occasionally an open spot shows up if there’s a cancellation; it will be posted online and you may register for it online.
CLASS majors: This course is not recommended for CLASS majors.
Please take Math 2311 if you are one of these.
Course Policies Quiz This is a mandatory experience. Take it on CourseWare during the first week of school. A score of 100 is a requirement. You will not be allowed to take any quizzes or practice tests nor can you take Test 1 until you’re finished this chore. Use the 13xx Policies statement from my website to find the answers to the CPQ.
Exams: There will be four online exams at CASA and a comprehensive final exam at the scheduled time in our classroom.
Note that NO exams will be dropped or omitted and retakes are not permitted.
You must bring your Cougar 1 card to every test.
Exam dates for Fall 2011:
Test 1: Sept. 5 - 7, online
Test 2: Oct. 4 - 6 at CASA
Test 3: Oct. 25 - 27 at CASA
Test 4: Nov. 30 – Dec. 3 at CASA
Final**: Tuesday, Dec. 18,11 am – 1pm in our classroom, bring a popper bubbling form
Finals are NEVER held during the class time of the semester. Plan on attending ours at the correct time. If your holiday travel plans preclude this, go enroll in a different section right now, please.
** You will need a Math Department popper bubbling form for the final.
There are enough in the course packet for this.
Tests are 50 minutes long (despite the class time being 90 minutes – these times are NOT correlated). I suggest 20 minutes for the multiple choice questions, 20 minutes for free response questions, and 10 minutes to check your work. You will be given 3 sheets of scratch paper as you enter the Testing Center – keep it neat and use it to help you check your work in the final 10 minutes of the 50. Push the “submit” button when you’re completely ready to leave the Testing Center, AFTER you’ve finished ALL the questions and checked your work. The final is 110 minutes long.
Extra Credit: There are practice tests and a practice final on Courseware. 10% of the highest score you earn will be applied to the relevant test as extra credit. Pay attention to the “end” dates on these. None of the practice tests will ever be re-opened. You have one time-limited shot at each of the 5 extra credit assignments. There is NONE available at the end of the semester except for the Practice Final.
Grading:
Test 1: 10%
Test 2: 15%
Test 3: 15%
Test 4: 15%
Final Exam: 15%
Poppers 10%
Homework 10%
Weekly quizzes: 10%
Total: 100%
You may use the Letter Grade Calculator to check your grade during the semester. However it turns off at exemption. If you want to calculate your grade during finals, use the following formula:
multiply your Test 1 grade by .10, multiply each of Tests 2, 3, and 4 scores by 0.15, multiply the Final Exam by 0.15, multiply your weekly quiz average by 10, multiply your homework average plus your attendance average by 10, multiply your popper average by 10. Add all these to get your semester score.
Grading Scale: If you call your score “x”…
A 93 < x < 100 B- 80 < x < 83 D+ 67 < x < 70
A- 90 < x < 93 C+ 77 < x < 80 D 63 < x < 67
B+ 87 < x < 90 C 73 < x < 77 D- 60 < x < 63
B 83 < x < 87 C- 70 < x < 73 F 0 < x < 60
Final Exam Comprehensive and compulsory unless you’re eligible for an exemption.
No makeups/no excuses.
Bring the department popper bubbling form and your picture ID to our classroom
NO EARLY FINALS
If you calculate your grade AFTER Test 4, using the grade calculator, and
your final grade starts with an “8”, you may choose to be exempt from the final. Grades from A to B minus are exempt-possible. There is a deadline for choosing exemption and once chosen, you cannot change your mind. The exemption days are December 7 and 8, 2011.
Help: The CASA Tutoring Center offers tutoring and is free to all students in this course. The hours are MTu 9 a.m. - 6 p.m., WTh 9 a.m. – 7 p.m., and F, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. It is located in 222 Garrison.
Learning Support Services tutors this course (3rd floor Social Work).
Help with the problems and streaming lectures is available from www.online.math..uh/Math1330.
Homework: Homework is an important part of the class. Each homework assignment is 20 problems and counts 20 points. In general it is due 48 hours after the lecture on the material. At the beginning of the semester, the first few homeworks have extended deadlines to accommodate students adding the class late.
Makeups: If you miss taking Test 1, you may have a Make-up Test at the department makeup time (TBA). If you miss taking any single test, your final will replace that grade. If you’ve already got one test being replaced and you miss a second one, that grade will be a zero.
A makeup test is NOT a retake. If you’ve taken the test, you must keep the grade you earned. You may NOT have retakes on any tests.
Modifications: I reserve the right to make modifications to the syllabus during the semester as necessary. If any modifications become necessary, I will announce them in class, post them on my website, or email them to you. Students are responsible for any announcements –
no matter which medium is used to announce them. Be sure to keep the email address on CourseWare and with the University current and your spam filters accepting my email. Note that Hotmail is especially obnoxious about refusing to deliver class emails – if you can avoid using Hotmail as your “forward to”, please do so.
Online Quizzes: Online quizzes will be given weekly in this course, starting the first week of classes. You may take each up to 20 times during the time that it’s available. Your highest score is retained as the score for that quiz.
There are no make-up quizzes. Once they’ve expired, it’s over. You may hear students from last semester talking about “Amnesty Days” – that was a failed experiment. We’re never going to do that again. The quizzes go up once and are down for good once they’re over.
Please contact CourseWare tech support directly if you are having problems. The email link is on the CASA homepage.
Opt-out If, at the end of the semester, the Letter Grade Calculator shows a cumulative score of 80.000000 or higher for you, you may choose to take the grade and skip the final provided you have finished the online course evaluation. The process is totally automated. You complete the evaluation online through CourseWare and then, during the 48 hours allowed for opt-out you follow the instructions, record your confirmation number, and you’re done with the course. The dates for opt-out will be announced during the last few weeks of class.
Poppers: Beginning with the third week of school, I will give daily poppers…short questions on the material from the lecture just prior to the one we’re having. Each popper will be taken on a purple bubbling form. I will drop 15% of the points given out. Popper grades will be posted in your CourseWare gradebook. There will be no make-up Poppers.
The forms are for sale in the University Copy Center in the Welcome Center.
Prerequisites: The prerequisite for this course is to have met one or more of the following requirements:
1) Received credit for MATH 1310 or higher at UH;
2) Received transfer credit for MATH 1310 or higher taken at another institution;
3) Placed out of MATH 1310 with a score of 10 or better on the Advanced Algebra (AA) section of the UH Math Placement Exam; or
4) Placed out of MATH 1310 with a score of 13 or better on the Calculus Readiness (CR) section of the UH Math Placement Exam.
Students with prior credit for MATH 1432 are not permitted to enroll in this course.
Parents: I will be happy to call (even international long distance) your parents to tell them that you got an A on any of the tests. All you have to do is ask me. I will be happy to meet with you and your parents at any time, too. You must initiate the meeting, though, and you must be present while we’re talking.
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