Senior Seminar: Course Syllabus
- Instructor:
- Dr. John R. Wicks, email: jwicks@northpark.edu, weekly schedule
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- Office:
- W10B (basement of Carlson Tower, across from Lounge Area)
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- Office Hours:
- See weekly schedule
for current hours. Please feel free to call or email
for an appointment at any time I am not scheduled.
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- Phone:
- (773) 244-5652 office
- (773) 262-7621 home (before 10 pm.)
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- Class Schedule:
- See weekly schedule
for current location and hours.
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- Text:
- Selected readings from mathematical books and periodicals available from the Library.
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- Goals:
- Besides teaching you an important body of knowledge, the primary goal of a college
education is to train you for a lifetime of learning. The goal of this course is to equip
you to continue your own mathematical education by teaching you to read
mathematical articles from magazines and journals, internalize what you have read and
present what you have learned to others.
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- Reading critically involves focusing your attention on a number of different levels and
then formulating and answering pertinent questions. We will learn to focus on four
different levels: mathematics as a whole, a particular article, a particular definition or
proof, and a specific logical inference. At each level, we will practice analyzing a
variety of texts through a number of specific techniques.
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- During the first few weeks of the course, our focus will be on in-class readings and
smaller assignments. As the course progresses, we will work our way up to a series of
smaller analysis papers and a final major paper and presentation.
Here are some general writing guidelines;
your papers will be graded based on the general quality of writing, as well
as the degree to which you demonstrate that you have gone through the
analytical steps described in the outline from class
to understand as much of the paper as possible. Your presentation grade will be based on the presentation that you give at a Math Club
meeting.
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- Grading:
- Grades will be computed as follows:
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- Assignments will be due according the the following schedule.
Grades will be available for each student. Simply enter your email
name and password.