James Jones, Professor of Mathematics
Mathematics & Sciences Division,
Richland Community College
This document contains the highlights from the syllabus and is presented as a way of saving paper for those who prefer to read the syllabus online. You are responsible for all information in the complete syllabus, which is available on the instructor's website or by request.
Course Meeting Information
Section 01 meets from 10:30 to 11:40 am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in room S137.
The WebAssign class key for this course is: richland 1979 4945
Instructor Information
James Jones, Professor of Mathematics.
Phone: 875-7211, ext 490
Office: C223
Email: james@richland.edu
Web: https://people.richland.edu/james/
Office Hours
I spend most of my office hours in the classroom, room S137. This allows me to help students with their assignments, homework, projects, exams, and questions.
- Monday: 10:10 - 10:30a, 11:40a - 12:00n, 2:10 - 2:30p, 3:40 - 4:50p
- Wednesday: 10:10 - 10:30a, 11:40a - 12:00n, 2:10 - 2:30p
- Friday: 10:10 - 10:30a, 11:40a - 12:00n, 2:10 - 2:30p
Text
There is a textbook and an electronic homework package required for this course. The electronic package also includes an electronic version of the textbook and you do not have to buy a printed textbook if you want to go completely electronic.
- Essential Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 2nd edition. James Stewart. Copyright 2013, Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning. ISBN-13 978-1-133-11228-0 (Required textbook, but printed version is optional)
- Enhanced WebAssign Homework and eBook LOE Instant Access for Multi Term Math and Science, 1st Edition. ISBN13: 978-1-285-18421-0 (Required – can also be purchased within WebAssign)
The two items above can be bundled together for cost savings.
- ePack: Essential Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 2nd + Enhanced WebAssign Homework and eBook LOE Instant Access for Multi Term Math and Science. ISBN-13: 978-1-285-94067-0 (Required)
Grading Policy
Letter grades will be assigned to final adjusted scores as follows:
A: 90-100% B: 80 - 89% C: 70-79% D: 60-69% F: below 60%
- 50% of your grade will be based on work conducted in the Enhanced WebAssign online homework and grading system
- 25% of your grade will be based on in-class, paper and pencil exams
- 15% of your grade will be based on projects
- 10% of your grade will be based on quizzes
Highlights from Syllabus
- You are responsible for all information given in class, even if you are absent.
- Assignments are due at the beginning of the class period on their due date.
- Late assignments lose 20% of their value for every class period late.
- Quizzes may not be made up.
- No late work will be accepted after the final.
- The student must notify the instructor when late work is submitted.
- You may be dropped if you miss two consecutive days without communicating with the instructor.
- You need to bring your TI-8x graphing calculator every day.
WebAssign Personal Study Plan (PSP)
The WebAssign software package has a personal study plan available for this textbook. It consists of practice quizzes, videos, and other tutorials to help you learn the material. In the eyes of the instructor, it is more useful than working a few selected homework problems.
The WebAssign portion (50%) of your grade will be assigned by completing the personal study plan portion practice quiz for each section in the book. These practice quizzes need completed on a regular and timely basis. Waiting until the night before the exam to complete them is not an effective way to learn the material. Furthermore, the instructor is expecting that the students will learn some of the easier material through WebAssign and will focus on the more challenging problems in class.
- If you have completed a practice quiz with a score of 80% of higher before the scheduled start of that section, you will receive a 10% bonus to your practice quiz score for that section.
- If you have completed the practice quiz with a score of 90% of higher before a quiz on that section, you are guaranteed at least 50% credit on the quiz (even if you miss every question). Your score will be whichever is greater: what you scored on the quiz or 50% of the quiz value.
- Practice quizzes that are not completed within 2 class periods of when the section is finished will receive 80% of the score shown.
- All practice quizzes must be completed before the exam on that chapter to receive any credit.
- The score you receive in the gradebook will be the average of the scores on each of the practice quizzes for a chapter.
WebAssign Notes
- Taking the chapter exam in the personal study plan will reset any grades you have received on the individual section practice quizzes. It is not a good idea to take the chapter quizzes before an exam or you will possibly wipe out previous work.
- The practice quizzes will show the latest attempt at the quiz.
- Practice quizzes must be completed and submitted in whole. There is no facility for submitting parts of it. Neither is the ability to retake the quiz and just answer the parts previously missed. For that reason, you are strongly encouraged to take notes and show work on paper (this will greatly speed up the process if you have to repeat the quiz).
- Each item in a practice quiz counts the same, not each question. A four part question counts four times a one part question. This is how WebAssign does it, I cannot change that.
- WebAssign practice quizzes are similar to homework or basic skills. They probably will not help you on the in-class exams, which are more conceptual and like the group activities or technology projects.
Quizzes
The quizzes are mainly designed to encourage reading of the material before the section is covered in class. The questions are picked so that a student with a medium amount of understanding of the section should be able to answer them.
In-Class Exams
The in-class exams in this course do not, as a rule, have basic skills questions on them. There is very little straight-forward "differentiate" or "integrate" type problems. That has been pushed off onto the WebAssign portion of your grade.
What you will find on the in-class exams are fewer problems that get at whether you understand the concepts rather than having memorized how to work a particular type of question. The questions will be similar to ones encountered in the group activities or on the technology projects, or they might be items you've never seen before but you should be able to figure out with the information you have seen.