First Year Mathematics: Course Syllabus

Instructor:

Dr. John R. Wicks, email: jwicks@northpark.edu, weekly schedule

 

Office:

W10B (basement of Carlson Tower, across from Lounge Area)

 

Office Hours:

See weekly schedule for current hours, and by appointment. It is best to email me or leave me a voice-mail message to suggest a meeting time, and I will return your message to confirm; if I do not have a clear conflict on my schedule, I am more than happy to see you at any time during the day Monday through Friday. Please be sure to come to see me before you start to have real difficulties.

 

Phone:

(773) 244-5652 office

(773) 262-7621 home (before 10 pm.)

 

Class Schedule:

See weekly schedule for current location and hours.

Text:

Goodman and Hirsch, Precalculus: Understanding Functions: A Graphing Approach, first ed.

Goals:

This is a college level class. Not only will you be expected to learn how to solve problems, but you should be conscious of what you are doing and why. The course focuses mainly on the function concept and its uses. The course can be separated into three different components.

• Introduction to functions and graphing. This is covered in Chap.2-3.
• Polynomial, exponential and logarithmic functions. This is covered in Chap. 4-5.
• Trigonometric functions. This is covered in Chap. 6-8.

Each topic will be viewed graphically, numerically, algebraically, and in words. To facilitate graphing, we will use the program XFunctions:

as necessary. We will cover selected sections of all these chapters.

 

Homework:

Here is a tentative schedule for the course. The standard rule-of-thumb for a college-level course is that, on average, one should spend two hours outside of class for every hour spent in class. This means that you should expect to average 9 hours per week on this course, divided between classroom discussion, reading, and problem-solving.

 

You should read each section at least one day before it appears in the schedule and attempt the problems in the upcoming assignment, so that you will be able to participate in class discussion and ask questions on what you do not understand.  Although homework will not be collected, I will be happy to meet with you periodically to review your homework with you to make sure that you are doing it correctly.  You will be graded only on your participation in class.

 

You should work in pairs on the homework problems and individuals will be called on randomly in class to answer selected homework exercises.  Your group will then receive:

0 points for no answer or a very poor attempt

1 point for an acceptable attempt

2 points for a nearly correct or correct answer

All responses should include an explanation, and not simply a formula or numerical value.  If you do not receive full credit for a problem, after we have worked out the correct solution in class, you will have the option of coming to my office and re-doing the problem to earn the balance of the credit.

 

Feel free to work ahead. This way you can allow more time to focus on your other courses, which may have end-of-semester projects and papers. As a college student, it is important that you learn to take control of your own learning process and to schedule your time efficiently.

 

Grading:

Grades will be computed as follows:

In class exams (3)	60 %
Final	40 %
Class participation: replaces lowest exam score	20 %

 

Summary sheets indicating the material to appear on Exam 1, Exam 2, and Exam 3 will be made available. Exam questions will come from the Review Exercises and Practice Test at the end of each Chapter.  If you cannot take an exam at the scheduled time, you must make arrangements with me to take the exam at an alternate time before the scheduled exam time, or you will forfeit a letter grade on the exam.

Grades will be available for each student. Simply enter your email name and password.

Help:

As long as you are putting in the effort to come to class, read the text, and attempt the problems, I am happy to meet with you to help as much as I can, during my office hours or any other time that we can arrange.

 

There are also tutors available free of charge, through the Center for Academic Services.

Classroom Behavior:

In order to show respect for one another and the educational process, and to promote a classroom environment with a minimum of distractions, we will adhere to the following rules of conduct:

• We will arrive on time for class, in proper attire, and focus only on classroom activities for the full 50 minutes -- in particular, computers will only be used at specified times for appropriate classroom activities; this demonstrates respect for the educational process.
• No talking while anyone is addressing the class, whether it is Dr. Wicks or another student; this is a basic sign of respect for one another.
• Other than during specified group activities, all questions should be directed only to Dr. Wicks; if one person has a question, it is likely that many people have the same question.
• No personal conversations during class; besides showing consideration to other class members who may be distracted by such conversations, we have a limited amount (43 fifty minute periods) of class time and it must be used as efficiently as possible.

If you violate these rules of behavior, you may be asked to leave class for the remainder of the period. If you are expelled from the class on three separate occasions, you will be dropped from the class roster.