Math 130**       Spring 2015
Course Information and Syllabus


Course title: Calculus for Life Science I
Large Lecture with professor: TuTh 9:30 -- 10:45, Armory 0131
Section meetings: Monday (Math TA) and Wednesday (Life Sci. TA)
Professor: Mike ("McBlaine Michael") Boyle
email: mmb@math.umd.edu
Office: Room 4413, Math Building
Phone: 301-405-5135

Professor office hours: M5, W11:30; also usually available directly after lecture Tuesday, and after lecture Thursday for a shorter time.

Office hours and contact information for TAs

Preqrequisite: Minimum grade of C- in MATH 112, 113 or 115 or permission from CMNS undergraduate office

Text. Calculus for the Life Sciences by Greenwell et al, second edition, ISBN: 9780321964038, publisher Pearson. (MyMathLab is not required.)

Edition of the text A common question about the text is "can I use edition two?" . We don't check what you use. The main problem with using edition one is that the homework assignments will be painfully unsynchronized and a bit different. You may miss some of the benefit of having exam questions look like homework. Altogether, considering all the other money involved in going to school, for most people it makes sense to buy edition 2.

My Math lab etc. The text comes in different formats and with possible "My Math Lab" supplement from the publisher. The supplements may be quite helpful for some students (and not for others). In the class, I will just use the textbook. Electronic version, physical version supplements -- that's all up to you.

Syllabus. A general list of topics covered is in the Math Department Syllabus for MATH 130 .

Schedule of work. See the very detailed Schedule of work for the semester.

Monday (Math) section meetings. In general, you will have an opportunity to ask questions about math homework, and the section will end with a quiz (to be graded and returned the following week) -- see the Homework schedule for what will be on the quizzes.

Wednesday (Bio) section meetings. In general, in these sections you will have a project (worksheet) to do in groups of 3 or 4 as organized by your TA. In your group, ideally everyone should be involved, and reach a point of understanding the solution. Experience indicates that those who explain a particular solution learn as much from the process of clarifying their thoughts as does the listener. Everyone hands in an individually done worksheet. You can be guided by others in your group -- but do not just copy solutions.

Tutoring resoures. The Math department has links to academic support, tutoring and counseling resources. Math 130 is not among the courses covered in the Room 0301 tutoring (the "Math Tutoring Schedule" link). For the great majority of students, the best resource will be the TA office hours.

Grading. The weighting will be The total possible points for items will be normalized to the numbers above. (E.g., if you scored 80 out of 100 possible on your bio worksheets, you'd get a corresponding contribution of (.8)(12.5) to your course percentage score.)
The relatively "easy" points should come in the sections, if you are careful to attend faithfully and do the math homework in advance. Midterm 1 is the easiest of the midterms contentwise.

Course Grades. Here is the correspondence of course grade and course percentage points scored: A 90-100%, B 80-89%, C 70-79%, D 60-69%. F 0-59%. It might happen that the curve will be relaxed, but it won't be made tougher. "+" might be added to some scores at the top of a range. "-" might be added to some scores curved up. (E.g., 80 is guaranteed B; if there's a curve, then 79 could be B-.)

Homework. For practical reasons, we won't be grading your homework. However, TA reports confirm that doing the homework faithfully is well correlated to better grades -- not to mention learning. You have to do calculus (homework) to learn it; with rare exceptions, learning calculus just by going to class is about as successful as learning to shoot a jump shot or play piano just by watching.

To encourage you to do the homework, your math section quizzes will consist mostly or entirely of homework problems you should have done (possibly with numbers or mathematically meaningless details changed). Most midterm problems will be in the same fashion from the homework.

Makeups. There will be no makeup quizzes, worksheets or midterms. Calculators. You are not required to have a calculator. Calculators are NOT allowed on midterms, math quizzes or the final exam. However, it can be useful to have an arithmetical calculator for the biology sections. There are also a number of homework problems which ask for some calculator computation. You don't have to do this, but I do think that doing this -- even though it is not graded -- can be useful for learning, and for checking work to catch mistakes. Also, "zooming" in with a graphing calculator can help with the intuition of what a derivative means.

Tips. Religious observances. If your religion dictates that you cannot take attend class on some dates with graded events, hand in assigned work on a particular date, then contact me at the beginning of the semester for my record (give day and date and reason for each miss) and to discuss possible alternatives.

Disabilities. If you have some disability related to testing under the usual timed, in-class conditions, you may contact the campus Disability Support Service (DSS). If they assess you as meriting private conditions and/or extra time, then you may arrange to take your tests at DSS, with extra time as they indicate. You must arrange this well in advance of a test.