Grading:

Your grade will be computed according to the following scheme:

Problem sets: 60%

Class participation: 10%

Final project: 30%

In assigning the final letter grade, in addition to considering your numerical scores from each graded component of the course, I will adhere to the following guidelines:

Grades at Wellesley College are described in the Articles of Government as follows:

(a) Grade A is given to students who meet with conspicuous excellence every demand which can fairly be made by the course.

(b) Grade B is given to those students who add to the minimum of satisfactory attainment excellence in not all, but some of the following: organization, accuracy, originality, understanding, insight.

(c) Grade C is given to those students who have attained a satisfactory familiarity with the content of a course and who have demonstrated ability to use this knowledge in a satisfactory manner.

(d) Grade D is a passing grade.

(e) Grade F denotes failure and loss of credit for the course.

Below are more details about each component of the grade:

Problem sets:

The homework can be found on the assignments page. Most Fridays, you will turn in the problems on the material covered in class the previous week. Problems sets are due Fridays by 5 pm. You should upload a pdf of your assignment to the Google folder I created for you. You will be graded on the content, but also in large part on clarity and presentation, and will be expected to follow the guidelines from this document.

You are allowed to turn one homework assignment except the last one late, and this assignment has to be turned in on the due date of the next assignment (so this usually means that you can turn in late assignments one week later than their original due date). Subsequent late homeworks will not be accepted.

It is very important that you keep up with the assigned work. Each homework assignment will contain some problems of the sort you have not seen before (i.e. of the sort not done in class or worked out in the textbook). The reason is that the best measure of a good grasp of new material is an ability to apply it in new situations, and problems that look unfamiliar at first glance are meant to test this.

An important note about homework collaboration and the Honor Code: You are welcome to work with your classmates when solving homework problems. In the event that you have taken notes while working with someone else, you must put these notes away and recreate the solutions on your own as you write them up for submission. Using notes from a collaboration while writing up your homework assignment will be considered a violation of the Honor Code. In addition, you may NOT consult a written solution to a problem you are working on (whether it be online or in a book). Breaches in the Honor Code in any aspect of the course will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the college legislation. If you have any questions about this policy, please talk to me.

Class participation:

Since a part of each class is devoted to discussion, you will be expected to contribute to the conversation.The class will frequently be broken into groups for brief conversations with a representative reporting the summary back to the class. Everyone is expected to do the reporting several times during the semester.

Project:

As your final project, you will create an online teaching module on a topic from class. These will be group projects. I will assign you into groups, give you the choice of topics, and provide more details about the entire process later. LTS staff has also put together this helpful list of resources for you!

Exams:

There will be no exams in this class.