Vector Analysis--MAS 4156/5157
Spring 1999--MWF 4th period
Syllabus

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Professor David Groisser
418 Little Hall
392-0281 extension 261
groisser@math.ufl.edu
Dr. Groisser's home page (http://www.math.ufl.edu/~groisser)

Office Hours: Tentatively Monday 7th period, Tuesday 4th period, Wednesday 7th period. Please come early in the period or let me know to expect you later. See my schedule for updates. You can also see me by appointment any weekday except Thursday.

Text: Davis and Snider, Introduction to Vector Analysis, 7th edition (1995).

Grading: Your final grade will be determined by

• Three midterms (hour exams), each counting 17% of final grade. Tentative dates for the midterms are Feb. 1 (Mon.), Feb. 24 (Wed.), and Mar. 31 (Wed.).
• Quizzes, totalling 16% of final grade.
• Cumulative final exam, counting 33% of final grade. This will be given in this room on Thurs., Apr. 29, beginning at 5:30 p.m.

I reserve the right to adjust the percentages above in individual cases if I feel that circumstances warrant.

See more about grading below for additional information.

Quizzes and Homework. Most weeks there will be a quiz, usually on Wednesday, covering recent homework.

Attendance bonus: If your attendance is good enough, I will drop your worst quiz. To qualify for this drop, you have to have no more than two absences for the whole semester. If you have more than two absences, but can document that ALL of these were for valid reasons, such as illness, I'll excuse your absences and drop your worst quiz. If you have more than two absences, and ANY of them is unexcused, I won't drop a quiz.

• Do not mistakenly think you have two ``free'' absences! Example: Early in the semester you miss a class to study for an exam in another class, or to go home to see your family. Later in the semester an illness or family emergency requires you to miss two more classes. Because you now have three absences, one of which is unexcused, you are ineligible to drop a quiz.
• Being late counts as being absent. (I'll usually start taking attendance before the bell rings. ``Late'' means you enter the room after the bell rings or after I'm done taking attendance, whichever comes later.)
• If you miss a quiz, it counts as a 0. (But this 0 is eligible for your dropped quiz if your attendance is good enough.)

For further information, see Attendance: frequently asked questions . I will not discuss my attendance policies with you (e.g. why I marked you absent if you were only a little late) until you have visited this website and read the all the information there.

Miscellaneous:

• Unless I say otherwise, you are responsible for knowing any material I cover in class, any subject covered in homework, and all the material in the textbook chapters we are studying.

• There will be no make-up exams. If you have a valid reason for missing an exam, I will re-adjust the weights of your other exams.

• If you miss class the day I return an exam, you'll have to pick your exam up from my office within a week, after which I may discard it. This policy also applies to quizzes and handouts.

• Class will meet the day before Spring Break. Make your travel plans early.

More about grading

I don't have a predetermined grade curve or predetermined percentages for letter grades. I decide the grade scale for each exam and homework according to the philosophy A = excellent, B = good, C = satisfactory, D = unsatisfactory but passing. At the end of the semester, I use the cutoffs from the exams and homework and to determine the final grade cutoffs on a 1000-point scale. For example if the cutoff for a B is 80% on the quizzes and homework, 72% on the first hour exam, 69% on the second hour exam, 76% on the third hour exam, and 74% on the final, to get a B for the course you'd need (.16 x 80% ) + .17 x (72%+69%+76%) + (.33 x 74%) = 74.1% of the total number of points in the course, i.e. 741/1000. 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.