Click here for practice final exam
.
The syllabus
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Halloween Midterm photos: Men In BlackPhoto1Photo2.
I would like to give a plug for the UCSB bookstore. I asked if they could increase how much they pay for used iclickers. Not only did they do that, but they wrote to me:
Just wanted you to know that we have decided to reduce the price on the iclickers. The vendor raised their prices this year and we raised ours accordingly. However, we are trying to find ways to reduce student costs and, therefore, will lower the iclicker price for Winter quarter from the current $37.30 to $35.00.
Please support your UCSB bookstore and yourselves by using it.
When you come to class you should bring your textbook, a notebook to write in, and your iclicker.
The HOMEWORK is done online using webwork
and an assignment is due every day class meets. Your login name and password are your perm. If you are a late add, send me an email with you full name and perm and I will add you to webwork.
A list of most of the homework problems
is here.
You can register your i>clicker here. When it asks for your student ID enter your perm. The clicker ID is on the back of the clicker on a small sticker.
During exams (but not lectures) you must sit in a special assigned seat.
Your
Tardis codeand which assigned seat you must sit in during exams is here. To find your
information use the first 3 letters of your last name followed by the last 4
digits of your perm. For example Donald Smiley with perm 4398251 would look for
the row SMI8251. Tardis is an acronym:
the first digit of your Tardis code is your TA,
the second digit is your Recitation/Discussion and the last two digits are your Individual Student
number. Thus Tardis code 3621 means you are student number 21 in the 6pm
discussion for TA number 3. Look here if
you want to know what the real Tardis is.
In the book you will find
Practice exams
An index to help you find information
Graph paper to tear out and use for homework
Answers to the problems are in the back of the book
Simple explanations
An entire chapter on how to study effectively in science and math
TA email addresses are here.
UCSB has a
wonderful free tutorial service!
You can get extra help with this course by signing up at CLAS for 2 hours of tutorial each week. I recommend the whole CLAS math 34 team: Loren Bonderson, Lee DeAnda, Carolyn Finney, Chris Kohler, Matthew Lanz, Kathryn McGill and Binh Pham; they have real class! Lee DeAnda has some great
web pages
about word problems.
If you get flu, do not come to class. I emailed you all a
flu letter.
Check out the student health website for information.
See what other students think of my teaching at
www.ratemyprofessors.com and please leave your own comments.
To get on the math department waiting list at https://mail.math.ucsb.edu/waitinglist/
In previous years about 50 students drop the class during the first two weeks and these places become available on GOLD.
I wish there was a better system, but I have no power to alter it.
The answer to your question about waiting lists is here.
P.S. I teach Math 34A in Campbell Hall Fall 2009 and again in Winter 2010. I also teach 34B in Campbell Hall Winter 2010.
Fun stuff.
In a smaller class there is a chance for us to get to know each other. In this
big class it is not so easy. If you want to know something about me, what I find
interesting or amusing, read on. Otherwise, and probably a much better idea, get
back to your homework.
Some books I enjoyed.
A video helping you visualize the magnitude of some powers of 10 within our universe, see chapter 7.
A humourous version of the same thing.
This movie shows a four dimensional hypercube rotating
in 4 dimensions, see chapter 4 about units and dimensions.
After we have done the calculus in chapter 8 you might enjoy the calculus
song.
In a similar vein is
Calculus
Rhapsody and
Mathmaticious.
The
slope intercept rap.
A video showing the difference between area and volume.
Watch this and you will be convinced that 5 times 14 is 25.
Someone made a film about my childhood and the bit starting at 1:14 is my favourite. The plane I was flying was an SR-71 Blackbird. They can move !
Some music that is currently stuck in my brain. Do NOT listen to it, listen to this instead Nessum dorma.
Tom Lehrer sings
the periodic table and funny math problems.
Listen to Richard Feynman explain what fire is and why trees come out of the air rather than the ground.
If you want to know about proof by contradiction.
Feelingdepressed ?
I do research intotopology.
In December after classes end I will go to a conference in
Brisbane and while there I will give a public lecture during which I will explain why the product of two negative numbers is positive, why infinity plus one is just the same infinity but two raised to the power of infinity is a much bigger infinity than the one you started with. I have made a picture that tries to convey some idea of infinity.
How to use a
calculator to help with this class.
The
easy way to get an A.
Other things
Teach For America.
As you may or may not know, of the 14 million children living in poverty only half will graduate from high school and only one in 10 will graduate from college. This academic achievement gap not only helps to rank the United States near the bottom of industrialized nations in international benchmarks but it is also detrimental to the socioeconomic and racial/ethnic diversity of our national collegiate student body (http://www.teachforamerica.org/mission/national_injustice.htm).
Teach For America is a national organization that is dedicated to closing the academic achievement gap in our country. We do this by recruiting outstanding college graduates to commit to teaching for two years in one of our nation?s lowest-income communities and they work relentlessly for those two years to put their students on a level playing field. We place our corps members, as we call our teachers, in 35 regions all around the country, both urban and rural.
math34af09@math.ucsb.edu