Syllabus

Exercises and Projects

Over the course of the semester, I am going to assign a number of exercises and two or three larger projects. An exercise is basically a homework assignment: something that you should be able to do in a few minutes to a few hours. About every other week, I will post a set of exercises, from which you can choose which ones to do. Each exercise has a due date; you must submit your solution (in the form of a Maple workbook) in Brightspace by the due date in order to receive credit. You must complete at least half of these exercises over the course of the semester. They all count for the same amount of points, whether they are easy or difficult. Part of the purpose of the exercises is to help you learn how to determine what is “easy” and what is “difficult”. Each homework problem is worth 10 points. Credit will be awarded primarily for clear reasoning and mathematical justification, with each step explicitly explained in the comments. Solutions that present results or code without step-by-step justification will receive at most 2 points, even if the final answer is correct.

A project is closer to a term paper: you are expected to devote a significant amount of time to doing it, and to take care with the presentation. Working together on the projects is encouraged, but each student is responsible for turning in his or her own write-up of the problem and solution. Half of the grade for a project depends on the clarity of the exposition, and half on the correctness.

Schedule