This course will generally consist of two 50-minute lectures and one 50-minute studio section per week, at the times listed on your instructor's syllabus. During lectures, we will go over the course material as found in the textbook, work examples, and answer your (hopefully) many questions. Please do not use electronic devices during lecture unless instructed to do so.
During studio, you will spend time working on problems in groups, going over problems with your teaching assistant, taking quizzes, and further discussing course material. You will also take the midterms in studio section.
Attendance is required at all lectures and studio sections. Classroom polling questions and quizzes in section both count toward your final grade. You must attend your assigned section — your attendance in a different section will not be counted.
There will generally be a quiz during each studio section, except when there is a midterm. Quizzes are 10 minutes each. Typically (but not always!), quizzes will cover the material that was done in the previous week in lecture (that is, what was covered 9 days and 11 days before in lecture). Quizzes also serve as practice for the exams. The lowest quiz grade will be dropped.
We will be using Piazza for online class discussion. The system is designed to get you help fast and efficiently from classmates, the TAs, and the instructor. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, we encourage you to post your questions on Piazza and attend office hours. You can access Piazza through Canvas.
Your instructor will use Piazza or Canvas (or both) to post announcements. It is important that you read the announcements! Note that you will not receive announcement emails from Piazza until you login for the first time!
We will do classroom polling through Piazza in lecture, so bring a computer or smartphone to class with you. Responding to these questions counts toward your final grade — although it doesn't matter if your answer was correct. The lowest three poll scores will be dropped. Please do not use your electronic devices when not responding to a poll.
Homework will be assigned online and will consist of exercises in
WeBWorK (accessed through Canvas).
You are
responsible for understanding how to solve all homework exercises for exams
and quizzes. Homework assignments will generally be due at 11:59 PM on
Thursdays. During the first week of class, there is an
ungraded practice "Warmup" assignment on
WeBWorK designed to get students accustomed to working with the system.
The lowest two homework grades will be dropped. No late
homework will be accepted — no exceptions. Each homework assignment
counts the same amount toward your grade. Sometimes multiple homework assignments will be due the same week.
Note that the quiz in studio section may sometimes be based closely on the homework that was due the very same week.
If you get a funny error message when clicking the WeBWorK tab in Canvas, try closing the window and trying again. Like many other Georgia Tech websites, the authentication procedure sometimes requires two attempts to login. Other permission denied errors may be solved by deleting your browsers' cookies for the gatech.edu domain.
There are three midterm examinations during the semester. Their dates can be found on the calendar. No books, notes, calculators, cell phones, or other electronic devices are allowed during exams. Each exam will be worth 15% of your final grade.
Absences from quizzes and midterms are generally excused only for Georgia Tech official business, religious holidays, serious illness, and the like. Absences for religious holidays and university travel should be discussed with your instructor by Wednesday, August 28. We reserve the right to ask for a letter from the Dean of Students to justify an absence. In the event that you miss the midterm for an acceptable reason, you will be able to take a makeup exam on the Monday immediately following the midterm. If this is not possible, then the weight of that midterm will be shifted equally to your remaining exams, including the final exam.
The final exam will cover all course materials and will be administered on the date and time set by the Institute, namely, on Tuesday, December 10, from 6:00 – 8:50 PM.
Your numerical grades on quizzes and exams will be posted throughout the semester
on Canvas. When receiving a graded quiz or exam in studio, check to be sure it matches
the grade posted on Canvas.
The grading breakdown is as follows.
in the Grades tab.
We have a partial grade replacement policy as follows: If you score higher on your final exam than on one of the midterms, then your lowest midterm will count for 7.5% of your grade and the final exam will count for 37.5% of your overall grade. However, any student who is found guilty of academic misconduct of any kind in Math 1553 during the semester is ineligible for this grade replacement policy. The grade replacement policy is meant as a good-faith policy for honest students who underperformed on an exam, not as a way to help the grades of students who have committed academic misconduct.
Final letter grades will be calculated as follows:
After all grades are in and all overall percentage scores for students have been computed, grades are assigned. The standard cutoffs are as follows.
A: [90%–100%], B: [80%–90%), C: [70%–80%), D: [60%–70%), F: [0%–60%)
So, to guarantee an A, get 90% or better overall. (90 means 90, not 89.9) To guarantee at least a B grade, get 80% or better overall, etc. These cutoffs might be adjusted, but only in the downward direction (to make letter grades higher).Progress report grades will be assigned on September 30. A satisfactory grade will be assigned to all students who tentatively have a C or higher as determined by their instructor.
There is no extra credit.
Students are expected to fully adhere to Georgia Tech's honor code.