M 408L (Integral Calculus), Fall 2017

Instructor

Andrew Neitzke
Office: RLM 9.134
Office hours: M 2:00-3:00, Th 5:00-6:00

Teaching Assistant

53880, 53885: Thomas Gannon, email: gannonth@math.utexas.edu
53892, 53894: Arun Debray, email: a.debray@math.utexas.edu

Class meetings

53880, 53885: TTh 2:00 pm-3:15 pm in WRW 102
53892, 53894: TTh 12:30 pm-1:45 pm in PHR 2.110

Discussion sessions

53880: MW 12:00-1:00 pm in CPE 2.212
53885: MW 3:00-4:00 pm in CPE 2.216
53892: MW 1:00-2:00 pm in ETC 2.136
53894: MW 3:00-4:00 pm in RLM 6.104

Textbook

Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 8th Edition by James Stewart

Homework

Pre-class assignments (learning modules) will be due every Saturday, Monday and Wednesday night at midnight. Post-class assignments will be due every Tuesday morning at 3am. All these will be administered using the online Quest system.

Midterm exams

Tuesday Oct 3, 7:00-9:00pm
Tuesday Oct 31, 7:00-9:00pm
Tuesday Dec 5, 7:00-9:00pm

Final exam

The scheduling of the final exam is determined by the Registrar's Office, and will not be known until partway through the semester.

Grade weights

Pre-class homework (lowest 6 dropped)	5%
Post-class homework (lowest 3 dropped)	5%
Discussion sections	3%
Midterm exam 1	19%
Midterm exam 2	19%
Midterm exam 3	19%
Final exam	30%

M408L is an introductory course in integral calculus. It includes most of the basic topics of integration of functions of a single real variable: the fundamental theorem of calculus, applications of integration, techniques of integration, sequences, and infinite series.

The emphasis in this course is on problem solving, not on the presentation of theoretical considerations. While the course includes some discussion of theoretical notions, these are supporting rather than primary.

This course carries the Quantitative Reasoning flag. Quantitative Reasoning courses are designed to equip you with skills that are necessary for understanding the types of quantitative arguments you will regularly encounter in your adult and professional life. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your use of quantitative skills to analyze real-world problems.

Course announcements will be handled through Canvas.

We will use Piazza for class discussions; our class pages are at 53892, 53894 and 53880, 53885. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, I encourage you to post your questions on Piazza.

We will have 28 Tue/Thu class meetings and 27 M/W discussion sessions. Here is a tentative schedule, which may be adjusted as the semester goes on. Some notes from the class meetings may also be posted here, shortly after the meeting.

Weekly post-class homework assignments will be posted on Quest. The post-class homework contributes 5% to the final grade. The three lowest post-class homework scores will be dropped when computing the final grade. No late homework will be accepted, and no make-up homework will be given. Because the three lowest scores are dropped, you can miss a few assignments without penalty.

No books, notes, or calculators may be used on the midterm or final exams.

The three midterm exams will be held on Tuesday Oct 3, Tuesday Oct 31, and Tuesday Dec 5, all from 7:00-9:00 pm in JES A121A.

The final exam will be offered only at the time and date set by the Registrar. This time and date will be posted here as soon as they are fixed. Extraordinary circumstances that cause a student to miss the final exam will be handled in accordance with the policies of the College of Natural Sciences and the University.

The teaching assistants will lead discussion sessions on Monday and Wednesday. Each discussion session will begin with a set of discussion problems, which count for course credit (total of 3% of the course grade), administered through Canvas. Please bring a device which is able to access Canvas over campus wi-fi (phone, laptop, tablet etc.) During these sessions, there will also be time to ask questions about the material and homework problems. This will also be a time to practice problem solving by working on problems not in the homework. These problems may be more challenging than the homework problems, and they are intended to stimulate discussion between the students and the TA.

Your first contact with the new material in this course will come through "learning modules" administered through Quest. The learning modules contain text, videos and a few problems to do. One learning module is due before each in-class meeting, and one during each weekend. The deadline will be set at midnight (so midnight Monday night, Wednesday night, Saturday night). The learning modules make up 5% of the course grade (with your lowest six grades dropped.)

The primary textbook for this course is Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 8th Edition by James Stewart. This textbook is of the highest quality, and you should read it. This does not mean that it is "easy" to read. Mathematics books in general are quite demanding on the reader, owing to the intrinsic difficulty of the material, so do not be surprised if you have to go slowly.

It is possible to purchase an ebook edition of the part of the text needed for this course, more cheaply than you could buy the whole paper book. Some more details about this are posted in a Canvas announcement. One drawback is that if you choose this method you will not own a book: rather what you will own is the right to use the ebook while you are enrolled at UT.

The differences between the 8th edition and the 7th edition of this book are relatively minor, and I believe you should be able to use the 7th edition if you prefer.