Lecture Sections: 040 Vincent Hall 16, 11:15 - 12:05
050 Science Classroom Building 325, 1:25 - 2:15
Instructor: Peter Webb
350 Vincent Hall, 625 3491, webb@math.umn.edu
http://www.math.umn.edu/~webb
Office Hours: 10:10-11:00 MWF and sometimes 3:35-4:25 MWF, or by appointment.
TAs: TBA
General Description
College Algebra (MATH 1031) is a 3-credit course for three main audiences:
- Business majors planning to take MATH 1142 (Short Calculus)
- Elementary education majors planning to take MATH 3113 (Math for Elementary School Teachers)
- Students needing to satisfy the CLE Mathematical Thinking requirement.
To register for 1031, you should have taken 3 years of high-school math, or passed GC 0731 with at least a C-, or taken a placement exam. This course is not a sufficient prerequisite for MATH 1271 or 1371 (Calculus).
We plan to study a number of topics:
- Counting and probability
- Linear and quadratic equations and inequalities
- Functions and their graphs
- Polynomials
- Exponentials and logarithms
Textbooks
[LHH] Larson, Hostetler and Hodgkins, College Algebra: Concepts and Models, Houghton Mifflin Company, 4th edition, 2003.
[Rom] S. Roman, Counting and Probability, Innovative Textbooks, 3rd ed. 1999.
These books are available at the Coffman Union Bookstore. A solutions manual is packaged with [LHH]. The bookstore is also offering a laminated algebra 'cheat sheet', which you don't have to buy.
Calculators
You should have a regular 'scientific' calculator which has power keys, exponentials and logarithms, and factorials. These keys often look like
or y^x or just ^, exp or 
, log or ln, and n!. Graphing calculators have these buttons, but you will not be allowed to use a graphing calculator on any exam. You will probably want to use a calculator on exams, so make sure your calculator has these buttons and is not a graphing calculator.Course Assessment
There will be three full-period mid-term exams, to be held on Friday October 15, Friday November 12 and Friday December 3. The final exam will be held at the scheduled time as announced in the Class Schedules, which is Thursday December 16, 1:30-4:30. The final exam will be held in a room to be announced later, not in our regular classroom.
You will also have homework, and/or perhaps quizzes, organized by the TA in recitations.
Your final grade will be made up of homework 15%, mid-term exams 15% each, final exam 40%.
Homework
A list of assigned homework problems accompanies this schedule. The problems are grouped together into homework sets, and the day of the week on which a group starts is not always the same from one week to the next.
I am going to leave the precise arrangements for collecting homework and saying when each homework set is due to your TA. Your TA will grade some of the questions you hand in, and might sometimes decide to tell you not to do all of the questions listed (since the lists can be long). Your TA is also responsible for describing to you a policy about late homework.
The problem (as I see it) with collecting homework is that you have only one recitation period per week, and if your TA collects homework during the recitation period and hands it back the next week, a long time will have elapsed. Nevertheless, it may be that this is what needs to be done, and it is a possible arrangement. I have decided that I cannot take in homework in class, because I have more than one TA and I believe that confusion would result. It may be, however, that your TA decides to collect homework by appearing at the end of one of my classes for a few minutes on a specified day, or there may be some other arrangement. Your TA should announce what the arrangement will be.
Absence from exams
Missing a midterm is permitted only for the most compelling reasons. Except in extraordinary situations, you should obtain permission from the professor to miss an exam in advance; otherwise you will be awarded a 0. If you are excused from taking a midterm, your course grade will be determined by giving extra weight to the final exam. No make-up exams will be given. Except in exceptional situations, all students missing the final exam will fail the course.
Attendance
Students are expected to attend all lectures and recitations. Attendance may be checked and included in the grade line.
Expectations of written work
In some cases in the homework problems and the questions in the exams you might not get full credit if you simply write down the correct answer. To get full credit you may need to write an explanation of how you got your answer. Where explanations need to be given, these should be written out in sentences i.e. with verbs, capital letters at the beginning, periods at the end, etc. and not in an abbreviated form.
I encourage you to form study groups. However everything to be handed in must be written up in your own words. If two students hand in identical assignments, they will both receive no credit.
Incompletes
These will only be given in exceptional circumstances. A student must have satisfactorily completed all but a small portion of the work in the course, have a compelling reason for the incomplete, and must make prior arrangements with the professor for how the incomplete will be removed, well before the end of the quarter.
Disability Services
It is University policy to provide, on a flexible and individualized basis, reasonable accommodations to students who have disabilities that may affect their ability to participate in course activities or to meet course requirements. Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact their instructors early in the semester to discuss their individual needs for accommodations.
University Grading Standards
A achievement that is outstanding relative to the level necessary to meet course requirements.
B achievement that is significantly above the level necessary to meet course requirements.
C achievement that meets the course requirements in every respect.
D achievement that is worthy of credit even though it fails to meet fully the course requirements
S The minimal standard for S is to be no lower than C-. The instructor or department must
inform the class of this minimal standard at the beginning of the course.
F (or N) Represents failure (or no credit) and signifies that the work was either (1) completed but
at a level of achievement that is not worthy of credit or (2) was not completed and there was no
agreement between the instructor and the student that the student would be awarded an I.
I (Incomplete) Assigned at the discretion of the instructor when, due to extraordinary
circumstances, e.g. hospitalization, a student is prevented from completing the work of the
course on time. Requires a written agreement between instructor and student.
Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty in any portion of the academic work for a course shall be grounds for awarding a grade of F or N for the entire course.
Credits and Workload Expectations
For undergraduate courses, one credit is defined as equivalent to an average of three hours of learning effort per week (over a full semester) necessary for an average student to achieve an average grade in the course. For example, a student taking a three credit course that meets for four classroom hours a week should expect to spend an additional five hours a week on course work outside the classroom.