Instructor: Moisés Herradón Cueto
Online Office Hours: Mondays 8:30 - 9:30, Wednesdays 8:30-9:30, Thursdays 10:00 - 11:00, or by appointment.
Email: moises at lsu dot edu
Time and place:
Monday through Friday 7:30-8:20 in a Zoom meeting
This course is a five (5) hour introductory calculus course designed for math, science and engineering majors and certain other technical majors. It is a General Education course in Analytical Reasoning since it includes the following area learning objective: "LSU graduates will employ scientific and mathematical models in the resolution of laboratory and real-world problems".
As a 5-credit course, students are expected to meet in class for 5*50 = 250 minutes per week and have a minimum of 10 hours per week outside of class for studying and homework, for a minimum total time obligation of 15 hours per week.
To enroll in this course you need to have a minimum score of 76% on the ALEKS Calculus Placement Test. More information on the LSU calculus ALEKS requirement is available here: https://www.math.lsu.edu/ugrad/ALEKS
This test covers the fundamental precalculus skills that you will need to succeed in this course. If you achieved your ALEKS score in a way that does not reflect your own skills and knowledge, then you may have difficulties succeeding in this course. In such a case, you are strongly urged to work through the ALEKS learning modules over the next two weeks so that you can attain a passing score that reflects what you know.
Lectures will take place at the scheduled time through Zoom. The link will be posted on Moodle.
Text: Calculus (early transcendentals), 8th ed, by James Stewart. We will cover Chapters 2 through 6 plus some sections of Chapter 8. You will need to get the ebook version for the homework.
We will be using WebAssign to do online homework and quizzes. If you have already purchased a Webassign access code for calculus in a prior semester, you can re-use that code with no additional purchase if it is a multi-term "Lifetime of the Edition” code for the 8th edition of Stewart’s Calculus textbook. If you do not have an access code and need to purchase one, LSU has negotiated a special discount for Webassign access in calculus that is available at this site: http://www.cengagebrain.com/course/4414282. There are two options. The cheaper one, WebAssign Instant Access for Calculus, Multi-Term Courses, 1st Edition gives you access to the online e-book and the homework and it is all you need for this course, so the physical pages of the textbook are not necessary unless you prefer reading from paper instead of from a screen. If you want them, e-Pack: Calculus: Early Transcendentals, Loose-Leaf Version, 8th + WebAssign Instant Access for Stewart's Calculus: Early Transcendentals, Multi-Term includes all of the above plus they will ship you the printed textbook in loose sheets of paper, if I understand correctly. There is also "Cengage Unlimited", which might be cheaper if you are taking other classes that use Webassign.
Create a WebAssign account by going to webassign.net and you should be able to find the class from Moodle. Access is free for the first two weeks of the semester.
Weekly Online Homework: 25%
Written assignments: 35%
Written assignments - oral discussion: 10%
Participation: 10%
Final exam: 10%
Defending your final exam orally: 10%
Your grades will be posted on Moodle. You can compute your average according to the above here.
There will be weekly homework assigned through Webassign, due every Monday starting August 31st. You will get many tries to enter a correct answer with no penalty. Your lowest score will be dropped. You are allowed to collaborate and use the internet, but everyone must submit their own homework and it's in your own interest to make sure you know how to do the homework even if you used external help.
Every two weeks, there will be some homework where you will have to ellaborate on your answers. You will be graded based on your process and how well you explain it, and not on the answer, so make sure to show all your work. Also, once in the semester I will meet with you online and you can explain to me some of the work you did on your homework. You will be able to see the work you did and use the text if you need it, so it's not really an exam. You only need to remember what you did well enough that you can explain it to someone who doesn't know how to solve the problem. I will meet with everyone at least once per semester. If you fail to attend the oral discussion of your homework, you will lose 10% of your grade (on top of receiving no credit for the oral discussion part). Your lowest homework grade will be dropped.
A small part of your grade will be based on your attendance and your participation in class.
There will be a final "take-home" exam and you will have to defend some of your work orally. Being an exam, you cannot use any outside help, including but not limited to other people and the internet. You can use the textbook. You will have a full day to complete it. After you hand it in, you will have to defend some of your work orally. Like with the homework, you won't have to come with the exam memorized, you will just have to be able to explain your previous work. If you don't show up to defend your exam, your final exam won't be graded either.
Here is a minimum letter grade you will receive for each score. The class can be graded on a curve, but only if this works in your favor. This means that I will do my best to adhere to past grade distributions for this class. For example, if your final grade was 85% but you had the highest grade in the class, you would receive an A+. On the other hand, if you scored 85% but you were on the bottom half of the class's grades, you would never get a score lower than a B.
97.5% - 100%: A+For anything regarding the course, you can contact me at my email above. If you write MATH 1550 in the header it would be appreciated, as it will help me not miss the email. In compliance with FERPA I will never discuss grades via email. For any of these reasons we can schedule a meeting if the time for the office hours doesn't work for you.
For math questions, you can come to my office hours on Zoom, and if my scheduled office hours don't work for you, you can contact me and we can find a time to meet. Also, the class will have a Piazza forum where you can ask questions like logistics, math or ask for hints on the homework. What I like about Piazza is that asking publicly can help other students who will probably have similar questions to you, and also you can reply to each others' questions.
I don't answer math questions over email as it's usually very unhelpful.
Cheating will not be tolerated under any circumstance. Please refer to academic integrity. As explained there, "A Student is responsible for submitting work for evaluation that reflects the Student’s performance.". This means that in your work you should always cite all your sources. This includes the textbook, the internet (calculators, forums...) and help from others, including other students. In your homework assignments, you can work with others, but you must say who you worked with in your homework, and each person must submit their individual assignment. You can also use books and look things up online, but you must cite all your sources or it constitutes cheating. It is also considered cheating to have anyone else to do your homework for you.
For the WebAssign homework, you are graded automatically on your answers only, and you get 100 chances to get it correct with no penalty, so I recommend trying to do it by yourself, since the goal is for you to learn by doing it.
The final exam is individual. You can use the textbook, but you are not allowed to use any outside help.
I strive to foster an open and supportive community in which to conduct research, to teach, and to learn. In accordance with these beliefs, all community members are to be treated with dignity and respect and discrimination and harassment will not be tolerated. I am committed to make the classroom and the course a supportive, inclusive, and safe environment for all students, faculty, staff, and visitors, regardless of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, parental status, or any other aspect of identity.
A partial list of basic skills you should acquire during the course.