Math 385,  Section B1,  Fall 2006

COURSE GRADE INFORMATION
The final exam grades are recorded on score reports and you can see your course average there. If you see anything in your record that looks amiss, please email me right away. I round to the nearest whole number, and the cutoffs are A+ 96, A 92, A- 90, B+ 88, B 82, B- 80, C+ 77, C 72 ,C- 69, D 54 (no D+ or D-).  I wish everyone a happy and relaxing break!


FINAL EXAM INFORMATION

Time: Tuesday, Dec. 12, 8:00-11:00am

Location: 156 Henry

Length: I will write what I consider to be a 2 hour exam. You are welcome to use the entire three hours if you wish and I expect some students will want to.

Content: The exam will cover the entire course. There will slightly more emphasis on the Chapter 9 material, since it did not appear on either of the hour exams. The previous hour exams and the homework problems are a good guide as to the general types of problems.

Formulas: For the final, you will be given some formulas. Click here to see an exact copy of the formula page you will be given for the final exam.  No other notes, no calculators.

Grading: Finals week is a very busy time, so I do not make any specific guarantees about when the finals will be graded, except that they will be graded by the university deadline of 5pm, Wed. Dec. 20. The final exam grades will be posted on score reports and you will be able to see your course grade online using https://apps.uillinois.edu/selfservice/. I think 5pm Dec. 22 is the date course grades are available to students, but I am not 100% sure. Cut-offs for grades in this class will be posted on the course website. These might not be available until Dec. 21 and they will not vary much from those announced on the syllabus.

Old Tests: You can find some tests from last year at http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~kmortens/385-Fa05/


Quiz #4 on Wed. Nov. 29, Quiz #5 on Wed. Dec. 6
Quiz information

Test 1 Information (Monday, Oct. 2)

Test 2 Information (Wednesday, Nov. 8)

Review materials, old tests, etc. can be found on my class website from 2005. Here is a practice test from S.O.S math (which also has summaries of many topics we have covered).

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse – a famous example of destructive resonance. Forcing frequency (from wind gusts) too close to natural frequency of the bridge. Watch the video clip if you haven’t seen it before!


Assignments       Iode     Calendar       Score Reports

 


Drop-In Tutoring  - Beginning August 31, Mon. through Thurs., 3:00-5:00 pm in 142 Henry, 7:00-9:00 pm in 241 Altgeld. Staffed by Math Department teaching assistants. Please let me know of any difficulties with the drop-in tutoring, especially if no tutor is there.


9:00-9:50 MWF in 156 Henry Administration Building.
Instructor: Dr. Karen Mortensen
247 Illini Hall, phone 244-4128, email  kmortens@math.uiuc.edu

Office hours:   Mondays and Wednesdays 2:00-3:00, Thursdays 3:00-4:00 and also by appointment.  Office hours may change some weeks - consult this webpage for up to date office hours.

TextbookDifferential Equations and Boundary Value Problems:  Computing and Modeling, 3rd Edition, by Edwards & Penney, Prentice-Hall 2004

Course content:   The course will cover Sections 1.1-1.6, 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, 3.1-3.6, 3.8, 9.1-9.7 of the textbook, as well as the related material from four Iode labs.

Iode Labs:  Iode (for "Illinois" and "ODEs"; rhymes with diode) is an educational software package developed by several UIUC Mathematics professors specifically for Math 385.  It illustrates direction fields, phase planes, mechanical vibrations, Fourier series and heat and wave equations.  We will spend several class periods in a computer lab (dates and locations to be announced) working with Iode, and some of the homework assignments will involve Iode.

Exam dates: There will be two hour-long exams and five 15-minute quizzes during the semester and a final exam.  Books, notes, calculators are not allowed on exams.  Dates for the quizzes will be announced at least two class days in advance.  Dates for the exams are:

Exam #1 – Monday, October 2, in class
Exam #2 – Wednesday, November 8, in class

Final Exam – Tues. Dec. 12, 8:00-11:00 am, location to be announced. The final exam will cover the entire course.   Note:   Please arrange any travel, etc., so that you can take the final on this date.   Math 385 has a "non-combined" final exam.  There will be no conflict exam given except for those few individuals who meet the official university criteria given here in the student code.

Missed exams:  If you miss an exam, you will receive a 0 for your grade.  The only exception is if you have a valid excuse for missing, such as a major illness or a serious emergency - if so, you must inform me before the exam or, if this is physically impossible, then as soon as possible afterwards.  In this case, you will be given a make-up exam as soon as possible. In case of a valid excuse for missing a quiz, you will not be given a make-up quiz; however, the missed quiz will not count as part of your quiz average.

Homework:  Written homework is due at the beginning of class on the due date.  Several problems from each assignment will be graded.

Assignments

Grading Information – On each homework assignment, only selected problems will be graded (due to limits on grader hours). Solutions to the assignments are now posted so that you can check your work on the problems which were not graded. See the Assignments page.

Missing and late homework:  Homework must be turned in at the beginning of class on the due date.  Late homework will not be accepted.  The only exception to this is when you have a valid excuse (see "Missed exams" above").  In this case, the grade for the missing homework will be dropped and will not count toward your average.

Course grade:  Your course grade will be determined as follows:

Homework

20%

Quizzes

10%

Exam #1

18%

Exam #2

18%

Final Exam

34%

The follow scale describes approximately how the course grades will be assigned.  The instructor reserves the right to adjust this scale slightly (for the whole class, not for individual students):

90%  or above = A+, A or A-
80%-89% = B+, B or B-
70%-79% = C+, C or C-
60%-69% = D
below 60% = F

You will be able to check your homework and exam grades at Score Reports, which is the Math Department's gradebook program.  This will be available beginning approximately two weeks into the semester.  Please check score reports regularly to make sure your grades have been correctly reported and tell me promptly about any errors.  You are responsible for keeping all of your graded homework and exams so that any discrepancies in recorded grades can be settled.

 Return to Karen Mortensen's homepage