Homework will be scored according to three criteria: (i) evidence of conscientious effort on your part to work all problems completely and correctly, (ii) the clarity of the work, and (iii) the correctness of the work. Regarding point (ii), Explain your work and write what you are thinking. In other words, don't just think, "OK, this is what I'm going to do now." Write it down. Write, "Now I will determine the maximum value." You needn't do that at every single step, but every now and then transitional statements like this are helpful, not only to your reader, but to you, to get you into the habit of thinking through your work more clearly and getting your thoughts outside of your head, where you can organize them better. This habit of sprinkling sentences through your write-up will carry over to exams, where it is especially important. Because, when we grade exams, the only way we can tell what was going on in your mind is by looking at what you've put on the paper. You cannot claim after the exam that you were thinking this, or that, if there is no written evidence of it. See what I mean? So use the homework as practice for writing up very clear work.
Collaborative effort on homework is strongly encouraged, because (i) the chance for you to articulate mathematical ideas to your peers (as you help them with problems) is effective in concretizing your understanding of the concepts, and (ii) you are likely to benefit from the insights of your peers, who may reveal connections that you had not made. However, each student should individually write up his or her own work, and you should never give your pals access to the final version of your homework write-up. In cases where two or more homework papers are clearly the work of one mind, the score due will be split equally among those involved.
Late homework is not accepted for any reason. (See below for how we factor in the possibility of illness or other excused absence.) You may submit an assignment early; make arrangements with your TA in that case. Otherwise, homework must be turned in during the first ten minutes of recitation and may not be submitted in any other place or manner. Homework put in anyone's mailbox will not be graded.
Save all returned homework and exam papers until you have actually seen your final grade for 21-120. Occasionally errors occur and a homework score does not get recorded. (Perhaps your paper gets "stuck" to the one above it as your TA is processing a stack of papers.) In case a discrepancy results, the matter cannot be resolved unless you can produce the returned paper as evidence.
The twelve homework assignments are worth a total of around 300 points. In addition, in any given lecture you may have the opportunity to earn In-Class Points. These will come from short written activities done during class, which I will collect, evaluate, score, and return to you. Such an activity may be worth anywhere from 1 to 10 In-Class Points, and we will have one of these in nearly every lecture; sometimes, we may even have more than one. By the time the semester is over, anywhere from 100 to 200 such In-Class Points may have been available to earn. Therefore, attendance, and participation in lecture will affect your grade as much as written homework does.
So ... let's suppose at the end there are a total of 150 In-Class Points, so that In-Class Points and Homework Points together total 450. This figure of 450 will be calledhe Grand Total (GT). But to take into account the possibility of occasional illness or other excused absence, we then take 88.23% of the GT, to get 397.035, the Adjusted Total (AT). Then the number of Points you earned is divided by the AT (397.035) to get a percentage. For instance, if you earned 358 Points, we get 358/397.035 = 90.168%. This is your Adjusted In-Class/Homework (ICHW) average, and it is weighted 30% by Final Grade Method A (below).
If you earned 450 Points, then your Adjusted In-Class/Homework (ICHW) would be 450/397.035 = 113.3%. Under Final Grade Method A below, since the Adjusted ICHW is weighted 30%, this contributes not just 30 percentage points to your overall average, but rather 34, making 104% the maximum possible Overall Final Average (OFA) rather than 100%. If you think about it, this effectively lowers the grade cutoff thresholds by 4 percentage points and makes an (unadjusted) 86.000% the threshold for an A grade (instead of 90.000%).
The moral of this story is: Full participation and engagement in the course not only improves your grade for the usual reasons, but also because of the built-in largesse of the grade computation scheme. But it only works if you're fully committed.
The scale factor of 88.23%, referred to above, is rigged so that no matter what the exact Grand Total turns out to be, if you earn every Point, your Adjusted ICHW effectively tacks 4 percentage points onto your Overall Final Average. The scoring design also takes into account a reasonable number of absences or unforeseen circumstances which might prevent you from getting a homework assignment in on time, etc.
If you have documentation of excused absence from any given lecture, then any In-Class Points offered that day will be excused. This simply lowers the Grand Total as it pertains to your record; for example, if a total of 300 Points are offered, but you missed 5 due to an excused absence, then when we compute your grade, the GT will be set at 295. (And this makes your AT equal to 260.28.)
So, to recap, here is how your Adjusted ICHW is figured:
Step 1: 0.8823 * (GT) = AT
Number of Points you earned
Step 2: --------------------------- = some percentage p
AT
Step 3: 100 * p = your Adjusted ICHW
Questions regarding the grading of exams or of homework must be brought to me at my office, outside of class. No such issues will be addressed in the lecture room. If you have a question or concern, please come during office hours or email me to make an appointment.
OFA Grade
90-100 A
80-89.999 B
70-79.999 C
60-69.999 D
0-59.999 R
Your OFA will be determined by applying both weighting Methods below
and determining which is more favorable to you. (We
will do the comparison automatically; you do not have to indicate a
choice.)
Final Grade Method A Final Grade Method B
-------------------- --------------------
9% Assessment Test 9% Assessment Test
13% Exam 1 16% Exam 1
13% Exam 2 16% Exam 2
13% Exam 3 16% Exam 3
22% Final Exam 33% Final Exam
30% Adjusted ICHW 10% Adjusted ICHW