Syllabus and course information

MAS 4105 — Linear Algebra 1
Section 6137 (14931) Syllabus and course information, Fall 2022
MTWF 7th period (1:55–2:45), Little 233

Link to class home page


Modality: All four weekly class meetings (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday) will be face-to-face. The MWF meetings will be ordinary lectures by Dr. Groisser. On Tuesdays the class will meet with Teaching Assistant Andres Zuniga for Q&A and other discussion. I won't spend MWF time going over homework; that's part of what the Tuesday class meetings are for. The pace of the course needs to be brisk to get through all the material.

Syllabus (course content): An introduction to vector spaces, linear transformations, and inner products. The general approach is theoretical (emphasizing theorems and proofs) rather than computational. We will cover chapters 1–6 of the textbook, with some omissions and (possibly) additions. General topics will include:

   Textbook: Friedberg, Insel, and Spence, Linear Algebra, 5th edition (2019).

   Tentative, approximate weekly schedule of lectures. Click here. You are expected to read the relevant material in the appropriate chapter-section of the textbook no later than the day after we cover that material in class.

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Communicating with Dr. Groisser outside class

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Graded components of course. Your final grade will be determined by:

I reserve the right to adjust the above percentages in individual cases (only to a student's benefit) if I feel that circumstances warrant. I will not answer any questions about hypothetical situations in which I might do this.

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Student Honor Code. UF students are bound by The Honor Pledge, which states:

The Honor Code, which can be found here, specifies a number of behaviors that are in violation of this code. As stated at the given link, Cheating includes but is not limited to:

In addition, students are obligated to report to appropriate personnel any condition that facilitates academic misconduct.

The "You cheat, you fail" rule: In my class, the penalty for cheating is, almost always, a failing grade (E) for the course (if the student doesn't drop). I will not tolerate students who take advantage either of their classmates or of me, causing me to waste time on police-work. If you cheat, do not expect a second chance from me.

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My grading system for this course

  1. After each homework or exam, I decide grade cutoffs for that item according to the philosophy "A = excellent, B = good, C = satisfactory, D = unsatisfactory but passing". In setting these cutoffs, I do not have a predetermined grade curve or predetermined percentages for letter grades.

  2. At the end of the semester, I compute a numerical "raw score" for each student, on a 1000 point scale, using the weighting scheme stated earlier: 20% (200 points) for each midterm, 30% (300 points) for the final exam, 30% (300 points) for the homework.

    On the exams themselves, you'll see point-totals different from the ones above. These are rescaled appropriately in the raw-score computation. For example, if point-values for the problems on the first midterm add up to 138, your exam score will be multiplied by 200/138 in the above computation.

    Similarly, the homework assignments will not all be the same length and will not all count equally; they will count proportionally to the number of points in each assignment. For example, if the point-values of the homework assignments add up to 249, then your homework-point total will be multiplied by 300/249 in the raw-score computation.

  3. By applying the same weighting scheme to the cutoffs for exams and homework, I construct raw-score grade cutoffs for each of the grades A, B, C, D. The cutoffs I use for A- and B+ are the trisection points of the interval from the B cutoff to the A cutoff; the cutoffs for the B-, C+, C-, and D+ grades are computed analogously.

The grades that UF currently allows instructors to assign are A, A–, B+, B, B–, C+, C, C–, D+, D, D–, and E. (For grade-point equivalencies of these grades, see this catalog page.) All of these are grades are possible in this class, except the D–.

In my philosophy (and that of my own college professors) of what a minus-grade means, a B–, for example, is not the lower end of the B range; it is somewhat below the bottom of the B range, and means that your work falls a little short of "good". (Said another way: another professor whose regards your work as "a little short of 'good' ", but who regards B– as meaning "the low end of the 'good' range", would not assign you a B– ; he/she would assign you a C+.) This philosophy is consistent with the degree-requirements for most majors at UF: courses count towards your major only if you get a "flat" C or higher, because a C– means that your performance was less than satisfactory—not that it was barely satisfactory—and therefore that you did not satisfactorily complete the course. This philosophy is also consistent with UF's S-U grade option.

For similar reasons, I have never given the D– grade. "D" means "unsatisfactory but passing". My D cutoff is the rock bottom of what I consider to be the "passing" range, so anything below that is a failing grade, which at UF is the E grade. (Note: Because a C is usually needed for a course to count towards requirements for majors, minors, etc., an unfortunate number of faculty, advisors, and students have come to refer to every grade less than C as "failing". This is not the correct meaning of "failing grade", nor has it ever been; again see this catalog page.)

Since I don't determine the exam-grade cutoffs ahead of time, I can't tell you in advance exactly how many points you'll need to get a particular grade for the course.

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Attendance policy. As UF has advised, students with a contagious illness (or reaonable suspicion of one) should not come to class. But healthy students are expected to attend every lecture, barring such things as family emergencies, weddings, funerals, UF-sanctioned extracurricular activities, and religious holidays (see below). All (potentially) excusable absences that are known in advance—i.e. all those whose justifications are something other than illness or emergencies—will not be treated as excused unless you inform me of them in advance.

Students who choose (for reasons other than the ones above) not to attend class regularly are forfeiting the right to my help in office hours, including explanations of their mistakes on homework and exams. These students should also not expect replies to their emails, even for questions like "Is there an exam tomorrow?" or "Have you decided when the next exam will be?" Also be aware that the University of Florida Attendance Policies contain the following paragraph:

If you miss class the day I return an exam or homework, you'll have to pick up your exam or homework from my office. I expect you to do this within a week (unless you are ill or quarantining); I will not hold onto your exam indefinitely. The same is true of any handouts that you missed receiving in class.

A grade penalty of up to 5% may be imposed for an unexcused absence on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

I expect students to arrive on time and to pay attention for all 50 minutes of the period. Arriving late is disruptive (as is leaving early). If a non-optional time commitment (e.g. a class the previous period in a distant location) will force you to be late on a regular basis, let me know at the start of the semester.

If you are absent, for any reason, you should obtain written notes from a classmate. (Students are not permitted to share their own recordings of lectures with each other, should they make any such recordings. See In-class recording by students below.)

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In-class recording by students

Students are allowed to record video or audio of class lectures. However, the purposes for which these recordings may be used are strictly controlled. The only allowable purposes are (1) for personal educational use, (2) in connection with a complaint to the university, or (3) as evidence in, or in preparation for, a criminal or civil proceeding. All other purposes are prohibited. Specifically, students may not publish recorded lectures without the written consent of the instructor.

A class lecture does not include private conversations between students, or between a student and the instructor, that happen to take place during a class session. Recording of these conversations is prohibited.

Publication without permission of the instructor is prohibited. To "publish" means to share, transmit, circulate, distribute, or provide access to a recording, regardless of format or medium, to another person (or persons), including but not limited to another student. Additionally, a recording, or transcript of a recording, is considered published if it is posted on or uploaded to, in whole or in part, any media platform, including but not limited to social media, book, magazine, newspaper, leaflet, or third party note/tutoring services. A student who publishes a recording without written consent may be subject to a civil cause of action instituted by a person injured by the publication and/or discipline under UF Regulation 4.040 Student Honor Code and Student Conduct Code.

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Accommodations for students with disabilities. If you wish to request accommodation for a disability you must first register with the Disability Resource Center. It is always important that you share your accommodation letter with your instructor, and discuss your accommodations, as early as possible in the semester.

Teaching-evaluations. Students are expected to provide professional and respectful feedback on the quality of instruction in this course by completing course evaluations online via GatorEvals. Guidance on how to give feedback in a professional and respectful manner is available at gatorevals.aa.ufl.edu/students/. Students will be notified when the evaluation period opens, and can complete evaluations through the email they receive from GatorEvals or via ufl.bluera.com/ufl/. Summaries of course-evaluation results are available to students at gatorevals.aa.ufl.edu/public-results/ .

UF Health and Wellness Resources:

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Goals of course:

  • For the student to become accustomed to communicating mathematical ideas precisely and clearly, in written form.

  • For the student to know the meanings and definitions of the following terms;

  • For the student to

  • For the student to be able to produce an example of:

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