Sequences and Series syllabus

Math 153-01 Sequences and Series Fall 2017, Prof. Mark Janeba

Meetings	Office	Text
MWF 9:10-10:10 Ford 302 204	Ford Hall 216 E-mail: mjaneba@willamette.edu Phone/Voice Mail: (503) 370-6123 Office hours: www.willamette.edu/~mjaneba/hours.html	Recommended: Single Variable Essential Calculus Early Transcendentals, 2nd ed, by James Stewart, ISBN-13: 978-1-133-11278-5

Course Content, Goals, and methods:

Upon completion of this course, successful students will demonstrate the ability to:

Determine the convergence of elementary sequences, and find limits where possible.
Determine the convergence of elementary series with the integral test, alternating series test, absolute convergence test, ratio test, and others.
Find or approximate sums of selected series using the concepts of geometric series, Taylor series, and the alternating series test.
Find approximate values of elementary functions and their integrals using Taylor series.
Find bounds on the error resulting in approximating a function with a Taylor series.
Compute Fourier series for simpler periodic functions.
Explain their reasoning in all of the above, in a concise, organized and coherent written form.

Learning methods employed will be:

Readings, lectures, classroom discussion, completing WebWorK and written homework, a midterm exam and a comprehensive final exam.

Grading

Midterm exam:	150 points
Comprehensive Final exam:	200 points
Homework, consisting of daily WebWorK and periodic handwritten worksheets	around 200 points
Total:	550 points (approx)

For each graded piece of work, I will post cutoff scores for grades of A-, B-, C, C-, and D. At the end of the term, if your point total is more than the total of the A- cutoffs, your grade will be an A- or better, and so on. Cutoffs will never be higher than: A-: 90% B-: 80% C: 70% C-: 67% D: 60% ... but they are often lower.

Exams: The midterm exam, tentatively scheduled for Monday, November 13^th, uses the entire class hour. The midterm is based on all the content covered to date.
The final exam is cumulative over the entire term. Final exam date: Friday, Dec. 15 from 8-11 a.m. Your final exam score will be the determining factor if your grade is otherwise on the border between two adjacent grades.

Exam makeup policy:
Midterm make-ups or early midterms are given only for verifiable illness or for university-sanctioned intercollegiate activities. For collegiate activities, you must see me before you leave to arrange a makeup time. In any case, you must contact me in advance except in emergencies.

Final exam time is Friday, Dec. 15 from 8-11 a.m., as set by the University; early finals will not be given. Please make travel plans accordingly.

Homework comes in two types: WebWorK and hand-in worksheets.

WebWorK is an online homework distribution and grading system. The goal of these assignments is to give you practice applying class concepts, and a means of checking your understanding. The best feature of WebWorK is that when you enter an answer to a homework problem, the system immediately tells you whether the answer is correct. You can try most problems as many times as you like, up to the assignment closing time. Once you submit a correct answer, that fact is immediately recorded (provided it is before the assignment closing time), and any wrong answers are not counted in your grade.

Here are some tips on using WebWork:

Get started on WebWorK early! Enter some answers at least a couple of days before the due date. That way you will have time to seek help on the harder problems (and the ones that looked easy at first but turned out to be tricky) before the set is due. Avoid the last-minute rush.
WebWorK usually requires very precise answers. For example, if the correct answer is 1.60045 and you enter 1.6, the system will say that's incorrect. If you are entering a decimal answer, give at least five digits of accuracy. On most problems, you can enter answers like cos(9.81sqrt(340)) instead of a messy decimal, and WebWorK will do the calculation for you.
Some WebWorK problems require formulaic answers, like x^(2/3), which means x raised to the power 2/3 (two-thirds). However, if you enter x^2/3, the system will say that's wrong, since WeBWorK interprets that as one third of x². So be careful and check your syntax.
WebWorK has a previewing feature which allows you to see how a complicated formula that you just entered is actually interpreted by WebWorK. The previewer will help you track down syntax errors and ensure that your answer is being interpreted the way you want without having to add many many parentheses.
Last, and MOST IMPORTANT, do not spend large amounts of time guessing random answers and entering them into WebWork. This is a waste of your time! If you don't know how to do a problem, get help from peers, the math hearth tutors, or come to my office hours.
If you think you are doing everything correctly and WebWork doesn't accept your answer, please come to my office hours or email with an explanation of what you have done, so I can help. Banging your head against the computer, yelling at it, or throwing it
out the window has no effect on whether WebWork accepts your solution or not.

Hand-in worksheets are intended to give you some practice and feedback for written solutions to problems, since that is the form our exams will take. Verbal explanation will be required on exams (and a central focus of our class time). Many students find it challenging to explain their reasoning verbally on exams, and that skill does not appear magically just because we need it - it takes practice. So use the worksheets to get low-stakes practice before the higher-stakes exams.
More specifically, worksheets will typically be due on Fridays, having been assigned 2-3 classes earlier. Worksheets will be graded on both correctness AND the logical organization of your explanation, which will be neatly organized on the page and written in grammatically correct sentences.

Participation, attendance, and studying:
It is expected that students make every effort to come to every class prepared to discuss the assigned problems. We're all grown-ups here, so I won't be taking attendance, but a sure (no kidding, sure) way to torpedo yourself is to miss class more than once or twice.
To successfully study for this course, you will want to:

Take careful notes in class, and actually read and review them afterward.
Likewise take notes for assigned readings, summarizing central points in your own words.
Ask questions in class - which can include "How do you do problem 13" but should go beyond that to broader questions that arise from thinking about problems and the wider topics covered in readings and lecture.
Make use of office hours and Math Hearth tutors when you need help.
It is well-documented that one of the best ways to succeed in math classes is to form a study group that meets regularly to work through problems and review materials. Explaining concepts to your peers and hearing their explanations is an excellent aid to success.
Above all, practice, practice, practice doing the things you know will appear on exams - i.e. solving problems and writing explanations for your method.

Accommodations for students with disabilities: Accomodations required by students with disabilities will be provided upon reasonable advance notice and verification of requirement/eligibility from the Office of Accessible Education Services (Matthews 103). If you forsee needing an accomodation, it is probably best to inquire at the Office of Accessible Education Services at the start of the course. If Accessible Education Services prescribes extra time for exams, you must remind your instructor of your needs at least one week before an exam and send an email reminder at least three days before the exam to ensure appropriate accommodations have been made.

Policy on in-class distractions and cell phones: It is important to respect the concentration and attention of each student in the class. Class time is limited, precious, and the tuition is quite expensive per minute. Arriving late for class is not acceptable barring genuine emergencies. Electronic devices not required (explicitly by the instructor) for the course must be completely silent during class time (no vibrate mode, please), including laptop computers and smartphones. Exceptions include calculators, and special-needs aids such as lecture-recording devices. If your cell phone rings during regular class time, you will be required to bring pastries or cookies for the entire class at the next class meeting. During exams, the penalty is more specific: two points for each ring, or one point per second of audible sound, whichever is greater. Please help me hold distractions for your fellow students to an absolute minimum.

Workload and time committment expectations

It is the policy of the College of Liberal Arts that for every hour of class time there is an expectation of two to three hours of work outside of class.
Thus, for our class you should anticipate spending six to nine hours weekly outside of class engaged in study time, reading and homework assignments.

Academic Honesty Expectations
All exams are to be taken with books and notes closed (except as noted on the exam paper), completely on your own. Anything you can electronically store on an ordinary graphing calculator is acceptable at all times, but written notes are prohibited. Wireless-capable devices may not be used during exams.

For collected worksheets, you may consult with fellow students for ideas and methods, but no one else should see your final write-up of any problem until after it has been returned. That is, sharing your written worksheet solutions before they are graded (or using someone else's) is expressly prohibited.

Plagiarism is the copying or paraphrasing of any work from another source without proper written acknowledgement. All students involved with plagiarized assignments will receive failing grades on that assignment.

In keeping with college policy, plagiarism will be reported to the dean (see student handbook). Systematic or organized plagiarism on exams will result in course failure. If you are uncertain about some aspect of the academic honesty policy, it is your responsibility to get clarification from the instructor.

Last Modified November 9, 2017.
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