Contact information: Office: Krieger 421; E-mail: wsw@math.jhu.edu

Course web site.

When and where: The lectures are MWF from 10:00 to 10:50 in Maryland 110.

Text: Calculus for Biology and Medicine, Third Edition, Claudia Neuhauser. ISBN 13: 978-0-321-64468-8. The book is required reading. In fact, you are technically required to read the book before I lecture on the material. That way I can feel free to cover the material, or not, in lecture, since I know you have already read it. At any rate, if it is in the reading assignment then you are responsible for it whether I mention it in lecture or not. From the syllabus you can usually tell what I am about to lecture on so you'll know what to read. Actually, there is too much stuff in the book for me to lecture, in detail, on all of it anyway. Thus you should read the material both before and after the lecture. If you don't, then don't expect to do well. There is a small note about how to read a math textbook on the web page for the course.

Homework: I will try to post homework late Wednesday. Homework will be due at the beginning (or end, depending on your TA) of the next week's section meeting (Tuesday or Thursday). The homework will normally cover the material in the lectures for the previous week. You are allowed, even encouraged, to work in groups. When it comes to handing in the homework though, please do your own solutions. Homework is THE essential educational part of the course. You will be graded mostly on your ability to work problems on exams. You cannot work problems on exams if you have not worked lots of problems before the exam, thus: homework. If you misuse homework by not doing it yourself, or not checking that you can solve a problem on your own after having been shown how to do it, then your exam scores and corresponding grade will be disappointingly low. My experience with homework is that students with slightly lower than average scores on homework tend to have higher grades on exams. Both are because they did the homework on their own. It is also my experience that pretty much the only students who don't do the homework are those in the D and F category. Late homework is not acceptable. Work something out with your Teaching Assistant about how to turn in a homework if you cannot go to class. DO NOT GIVE IT TO ME. The TAs deal with the homework.

Old Exams: I have dug out every old exam that I can find. I know nothing about them but they might be good study materials. They might not even apply to our syllabus, but you should be able to tell. They are not organized so the solutions, if they exist, might not be next to the exams. The exams for two years ago are on the website for that year. Likewise, the exams for last year are on last year's website. These are particularly good study guides since I make up your exams and I made up these exams.

As with homework, I encourage you to work in groups on any old exams you find. They are very good study materials and solutions are not always available. However, as with homework, you must use the groups carefully or they will work against you rather than for you. So, some suggestions for study groups. All members should work all problems before the study group meets. At the meeting, the group should hash out differences and help those who couldn't work certain problems. The day after the group each student should work those problems they couldn't work before. A student who goes to a study group and "learns by watching" is not likely to do well in the course. I do not grade on the basis of how well you can watch others do problems.

Sections: You must be very careful to physically go to the section you are officially signed up for since that TA will be the one who gives you 20% of your grade. Neither I nor the TAs can move you from one section to another. You should go to the math department office and learn what they say there about how to switch sections (or get into one if that is the problem). Do not bring this problem to either me or a TA as we are not authorized to do anything about it.

Exams: I traditionally assign seating for exams. Come early enough so you can find your seat if I do. Bring your I.D. Do not have any math books or papers anywhere near you. Official grading policy gives you a zero for the exam if you break rules. If you miss an exam with a good excuse then see me as soon as possible. There will be no makeup exams. For excused absences, the grade for a missed exam will be a weighted average of other exam grades. The TA will hand out the exams in section when they are graded. We sometimes make mistakes when we grade exams. Check yours over carefully to see that it was graded properly and the score was added correctly. Do this before you take it out of the room. If you take an exam out of the room we assume that you accept the grade and it will not be changed after that under any circumstances. If you are not sure, return it to the TA and look at it later with the TA.

Colds and Flu: As part of the college experience, most of you will get sick with a cold or the flu before the end of September. It is because you are meeting new people and not getting enough sleep. I don't want to join you in this adventure, so I'll pass on shaking hands. Nothing personal.

Personal Problems: If you anticipate, or actually experience, serious problems with an exam because you have physical, mental or psychological problems, then come and talk to me, preferably before the exam, but better late than never. Exams are for the purpose of finding out if you know the material, not to see if you can function when your mother just ran off with a Hitler clone, your girl/boy-friend just ran off with your roommate or any of the other natural and unnatural disasters which happen to students every year. If you need some sort of special consideration because of a disability or other reason then you should let me know in a timely fashion. If you freak or freeze during an exam then tell me then, during the exam, don't wait to tell me the next day. Read that last sentence again and remember it so that it floats to the surface if all other mental functions fail you.

Grades: Roughly speaking, depending on how the class goes, you can sort of expect that the middle grade might be about a B/B-/C+ and about 25-35% of the class might get As. However, if you all learn the material really well then I would be delighted to give you all As. I like to give hard exams because I don't think the best students should be cheated out of their tuition; they should have something to do too. So, don't get demoralized if the average is 50%, I grade on the proverbial 'curve'. I will give two midterm exams, each worth 20%. Your TA grades you for another 20%. The final will count 40%. I adjust the lowest of the 3 20% grades up to the middle one. This is done after I have adjusted the grades so they can be compared. If you do better on the final than you have during the term (after I have adjusted the numbers so I can compare them) then I will give a fudge factor for that equivalent to counting the final 60%. I adjust things so that fully 1/2 of the class gets this fudge factor. I reserve the right to count in-class participation towards (or against) the grade but should point out that I have never done it. Grading will not be consistent from section to section. However, I will adjust the grades of each section so that they are comparable and no section will be hurt because of a 'tough' grader or helped because of an 'easy' grader.

Every semester there are a number of students who are unhappy with their course grade. Only one or two of these students push very hard for a grade change. These students are usually ones who neglected some important part of the course like doing the homework, studying, or they want some sort of special consideration. Special consideration is patently unfair to all of the other students. I will not do something for one student that I would not do for all. I will not be unfair to the many students who would like a better grade but who do not bug me daily for a week or two. Students who do push hard for a grade change will experience my insistence on fairness for all students as personal brutal abuse. I will be able to defend any grade I give and my chairman and my dean will back me up. The point of this little tirade is two-fold. First, I would really like to save the incredible amount of time these one or two students cost me each semester, and, second, I want to reassure all of the other students that I will not unfairly change someone else's grade just because they made a pest of themselves. I take grades seriously because I know most students do too. That means that they should be fair.

HELP! The department runs a help room, Krieger 213, which is open most of the day; check door for times. This is the easiest, most convenient way to get help if you need it. It is there right when you want it. My office hours are Monday, 2:45-3:45. However, the way this works is I'll be there for the first 15 minutes, and if no one comes, I'll feel free to leave unless someone has emailed me and told me they are coming but won't be there in the first 15 minutes. I am also available by appointment and you can always send me an email at any time. Also, feel free to grab me after class as I am almost always available right then. Jon Beardsley is the TA for Thursday at 3 (Section 3, Shriver 104) and 1:30 (Section 4, Gilman 55). His help room hours are Thursdays 5-7 and office hours Thursdays 4-5. Chanyun Luo is the TA for Tuesday at 4:30 (Section 1, Gilman 119 ) and 3pm (Section 2, Krieger 304). His help room hours are Monday 5-7 and his office hours are Tuesday 2-3.

HOURS YOU OWE: This is a 4 credit course. I assume that you take 15 credits and you work 45 hours a week. You should, of course, work a lot more than that. That means you owe this course 45 x 4/15 = 12 hours, minus the 4 in class if you come, to get 8. If you are not working 8 hours outside class then don't be surprised if you're not doing well. You should also think that 8 hours is just about right to get a B-/C+. Work harder before you complain or even before you ask for too much help. You are not working hard in this course until you put over 12 hours a week into it outside of class if you come to class, 16 if you don't. If you are taking more than 15 credits then you have chosen to work more hours.

BOSS: I'm the boss for the course. If the TA tells you something that contradicts what I said, get it straightened out. This could be quite serious. If, for example, they said you didn't have to go to a midterm because they don't count, you probably should check with me because that contradicts what I said. If you don't, and you listen to them, then you could lose big. We have very good TAs so I do not anticipate any problems, but if you have problems with your TA then you must bring it to my attention as quickly as possible if you want the problem to end. For some reason students don't take this admonition seriously. If you have complaints about your TA then see me about them. We'll fix it.

Study Habits: I should give you a little speech here about study habits. All of you are good enough to get an A in the course. What will determine the grade is a combination of motivation and study skills. Motivation shouldn't be a problem since the material is great and you are paying a fortune to get it (although I have met students who were unaffected by these motivational tools). Study skills are harder to come by. There are various things around to read like the little pamphlet, How to Study Calculus, by Larry Joel Goldstein. Also, on my personal web site there is something called the Mathematics Survival Guide that is well worth reading. In a nutshell though, the point is, you learn math by doing. You can watch people do math all day and not get much of an education. Do it. Work problems. Memorize every theorem and definition in the book. You need to know them all anyway, why make it up when you need it? Just learn it and remember it. Then work every problem you can find. If you get help from someone, then go back and work it again by yourself the next day. I cannot emphasize enough how important that last statement is. Read it again. Do it. Many of you will notice that there is a slight difference between this course and the last math course you took in high school. We have roughly 100 students in this course. How big was your last math class in high school? Did your teacher in high school actually know your name? Did you have to read the book to learn the material in high school or could you get it all out of the class? How many class hours did you have in high school to learn one semester of Calculus? How many are you going to get for Calculus II here? You MUST be able to read the book in this class.

Calculus II: Calculus I gave the basic introduction to Calculus concepts. If you have it down pat, then all other calculus courses are easy because they just keep applying those concepts over and over again. Calculus II is a bit of a hodge podge of different calculus topics. As such, it might seem a bit incoherent, but it is all good stuff.

From the Course Catalog: 110.106-107 (Q) Calculus I, II (Biological and Social Sciences)
Differential and integral Calculus. Includes analytic geometry, functions, limits, integrals and derivatives, introduction to differential equations, functions of several variables, linear systems, applications for systems of linear differential equations, probability distributions. Applications to the biological and social sciences will be discussed, and the courses are designed to meet the needs of students in these disciplines.
4 credits

Final Exam: The date and time for the final exam for the course is 9 AM - 12 Noon, Wednesday, Dec 9.

Attendance: Not all students come to class every day. There are a couple of reasons why this can adversely affect a student's grade in the course. One type of student isn't really interested and doesn't really care. The consequences are obvious. Some just sleep better in a bed than in a class; I can sympathize with this. Another type of student learns better by reading and seldom gets much out of a lecture and so they don't go. (I was that type, and anyway, I've only recently learned how to sleep in lectures.) There is a problem with this too. During the lectures I let students know what I think is important in the course and it turns out that I make up the exams and I tend to put what I think is important on the exams. A student who doesn't pay any attention to what happens in class might miss this important connection. So, if you are among those who regularly cut class, I advise you to stay in close contact with someone who does go so that you will know what I am doing in class and what I think is important. You will not get that from the book. The point of this paragraph is that there are good students who don't come to class but who study very hard and then find that their decisions about what was most important to study were wrong. There are also those students who get the day of the exams wrong. A little contact with the class can help avoid those embarrassing situations.

Calculators: You will not be allowed to use calculators on your exams or quizzes in this course. Thus it is not a good idea to use them on homework (with exceptions) since the homework is designed to prepare you for the exams and quizzes. The reason for this "no calculator" rule is simple. The purpose of this course is to give you a basic understanding of Calculus II and develop your problem solving skills in this new context. There is no mathematics concept in this course that requires the use of a calculator (or computer) for you to learn it or for me to test you on it. The same can be said for all previous mathematics that you have learned. Calculator dependency is a BAD thing. You can check my web page to see a paper that shows that the students at Johns Hopkins who had calculators "encouraged and emphasized" in K-12 had somewhat lower grades in their JHU mathematics courses. The paper shows that this is independent of math SAT scores.

Ethics: I have rarely had problems with cheating in my classrooms and I don't expect to have it in this class. If, however, you know of cheating going on or feel that anything about the course is unfair, then please, report it to me. In the event of cheating then let me know how it is being done so that I can stop it. Cheating does not cheat me but cheats the other students in the class since cheating that raises one person's grade can lower everyone else's class standing.

The Dean has asked us to put in a formal statement about ethics into the syllabus so here it is.

ETHICS SYLLABUS INSERT

Cheating is wrong. Cheating hurts our community by undermining academic integrity, creating mistrust, and fostering unfair competition. The university will punish cheaters with failure on an assignment, failure in a course, permanent transcript notation, suspension, and/or expulsion. Offenses may be reported to medical, law or other professional or graduate schools when a cheater applies.

Violations can include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of assignments without permission, improper use of the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty, and unfair competition. Ignorance of these rules is not an excuse.

On every exam, you will sign the following pledge: "I agree to complete this exam without unauthorized assistance from any person, materials or device. [Signed and dated]"

For more information, see the guide on "Academic Ethics for Undergraduates" and the Ethics Board web site (http://ethics.jhu.edu).

Each week explicit reading and homework assignments will be posted.

Roughly speaking, the general plan of the course and Exam Dates:

The lectures, in general, meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. First day of class is Friday, August 28. There are no classes on Monday, September 7, Friday, October 16, or Thanksgiving week. Thursday, October 15, has been redefined as a Monday, so we do have class that day. That week there will be no Thursday section, but there will be a Thursday section the day before the first lecture, i.e. Thursday, August 27. Good luck with that. The last day of class is Friday, Dec 4. The final exam is 9AM Wed, Dec 9.

We will cover sections 7.4, 8.1-2, and 9.1-4 during the month of September, ending with Exam #1 on Monday, September 28.

We will cover sections 10.1-6, and 11.1-2 during the month of October, ending with Exam #2 on Friday, October 30.

We will cover 12.1-7 during November and December with the last day of class Dec 4.

The Final Exam is Wednesday, Dec 9, 9am to noon and it will be quite heavy on Chapter 12 since that won't be covered on our midterms.