How to reach Orest Bucicovschi:
The best thing during the office hours; he is not necessary
in his office in the other time; you can e-mail or phone
him (but his office and phone are shared, so use the phone
as the last reserve).
Textbook and Matherial
Elementary Differential
Equations and Boundary Value Problems,
Boyce & DiPrima, 6th edition, publisher - John Wiley & Sons.
Note, that there are two books:
Elementary Differential Equations and
Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems.
Second book is a bit larger and actually we don't need extra material
but the difference seems to be about 6 bucks only and it gives a
better value.
We will be covering Chapters 1-9. Some of the
starred sections which are technical will not be done in depth (or even
skipped) but we don't mind if you read them. In general the emphasis in
this course will be on solving problems rather than on theory, but
problem solving based on a solid grasp of the concepts involved,
rather than
cookbook recipes. You will also be expected to know the statements of
the theorems that will be covered in class and be able to explain what
they mean intuitively. You will not be asked to prove theorems but some
of the problems will be of a theoretic nature, asking you to prove
something, usually as a straight forward application of some of the
theorems.
An understanding of calculus and linear algebra is essential in this course.
Evaluation
There will be 2 quizzes, 45 min. each of the equal weight (10%) of the final
mark each, together making 20% of the final mark worth, 4 Graded Home
Assigments of the equal weight (5%) of the final
mark each , together making 20% of the final mark worth,
Midterm Test, 20% of the final mark
and Final Exam will be 40% worth. Your final
mark will be just a sum of your scores (no belling or bulling). Some of
these tests will contain Bonus problems to give you an opportunity
to show how smart you are and earn extra points. If your rescaled
examination mark will be higher than this sum, you will get the rescaled
examination mark. But it doesn't happen often and you should not rely
upon this chance!!! Quizzes will be in schedule while Midterm Test (2 hours)
will be not.
Make-up
If you missed the quiz or home work due to
really good reasons (from my point of view!) you should contact me as
soon as possible (phone and e-mail are OK) and make-up will be arranged
if possible. Otherwise, your mark will be rescaled (subject to my
discretion). If your case is not so noble or if you failed to contact me
promptly (one week after test or dead-line is OK but this period could be
extended in some cases) you will get a make-up or rescaling with 10% or
20% reduction of your score for this test (subject to my discretion again).
Further, you can make-up up one quizzes you didn't
do well with 20% reduction of your second score (you should ask in 7 days
after return of the papers). If your first score was higher, it will not be
changed. Remember, however, that this is a heavy load for instructor and
TA and my intention is to make you to learn more rather than to improve
your mark.
The grading of quizzes, term tests and home works is done by TA and
you should contact him/her first if you have related questions.
If you came to course later
Contact me as soon as possible!
If you have a problem
Contact me as soon as possible!
Don't let you problem grow-up until it will be mature and hard-to-solve!
Problem Sets
The problem sets (usually consisting of problems from the textbook) will
be assigned weekly. These problems will be not submitted for marking.
Students must do these weekly problems in order to prepare themselves
for the quizzes and term tests. We will try to provide answers
for them on the same. Remember: it is very important to solve all
the suggested problems. You can trap yourself frequently
applying the rule "I know how to solve this problem,
ergo I shouldn't waste the time solving it".
Quizzes and Graded Home Assignments
Make-up
will be only on the following week. Students, having a good reason to miss
the quiz and make-up should be ready to submit the proof.
Final Exam
The procedure is completely determined by
University policy. No frills! No early sitting, make-up and you will not get
your papers back unless you pay some fee (instructors don't get their fair
share; actually they didn't get any share of this fee at all)
Solutions
will be provided after the tests shortly (including
final exam).
Marks management
As soon as your tests are graded I put the
marks in the Master-File (or rather bunch of them) in my computer.
Further, I put marks for every final exam problem in the Master-File. Note,
that only this file is used for the final mark calculation. But errors are
possible: TA can make problems grading errors, I have yet to see TA who
is proficient in arithmetics and I make typing errors. To find errors you
must browse your marks in my office or on-line; further you
must get your paper, check TA marking, arithmetics and compare
master-file mark with the real one. To correct the error you should
bring the paper to my office (to be sure that I make a correction). I can
correct TA errors in mark calculation only; for grading discussions you
must contact TA. Note, that you should get your paper and
check it and browse your mark-on-line!
Marks-on-line
You can browse your personal marks via WWW (URL is
where yourpass is some special password. By the
default, it is your stutent' ID number. If you want a better privacy
protection you will get a really hard-to-crack yourpass coming
to my office. I hope that you will neither give yourpass to anybody nor
put it on your home page as one whiz kid did some time ago. Note, that the
file you are browsing is not a master-file but it is generated
from master-file by some script I run only after major changes
of the master-file. So, any correction of your mark in my master-file
affects marks-on-line with some delay. Anyway, this file-on-line
is not used for any calculation. And
again browsing marks doesn't mean that you need not to get and check
your real paper: you still must: first, you need to read TA's notes
(which can be really useful); second, you can discover marking and copying
errors. Further, knowing your score for each final exam problem you can
decide if you really want to pay to recover your work.
You can see
how it looked like one year ago.
M.A.C. at Sidney Smith
This M.A.C. means Math Aid Centre. It is
open during the week, starting the week of October 1. The hours of
operation and location will be announced. Any important information
concerning the course will be posted on the MAT 244S notice board inside
the above M.A.C.
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