Calculus III

Fall 1997

Other resources

Change in location!!! Starting immediately, this class will meet in CRBL 402/404

Syllabus

Instructor: Dr. Art Duval

Please feel free to come by any time during scheduled office hours. You are welcome to come at other times, but in that case you might want to make an appointment, just to make sure that I will be there then. You can make an appointment simply by talking to me before or after class, by calling me at my office or at home, or sending e-mail.

Textbook: Multivariable Calculus, McCallum, Hughes-Hallet, Gleason, et. al., Chs. 11-18.

We will skip a few sections, as announced in class. The textbook is required at all class meetings. A Student Solution Manual, consisting of solutions to approximately every other odd problem, is also available at the bookstore.

Technology:

We will occasionally meet in a computer lab for you to work on in-class projects using computer graphics. The emphasis will be on using the computers as tools, not learning any sort of programming. The computer lab has extensive open hours, so you may practice and explore outside of class. I will announce the open hours when I know them.

You may also have a graphing calculator, such as the TI-85 or HP-48 in class at any time, including during tests. A graphing calculator will only occasionally be useful, though, and you can probably get by without it. You will however, need at least a scientific calculator at all class meetings and during tests.

Grades:

Homework(15%):
Homework will be assigned most class days and will generally be due at the beginning of the next class meeting (with exceptions as announced in class). Late homeworks will NOT be accepted, but the three lowest individual scores will be dropped.

Some homework may take the form of written group projects; in this case, every group member will receive the same score. Each of these will count as two homework assignments.

There will also be in-class group assignments, due at the end of class. These will each count as half a homework assignment, and cannot be made up if you are absent.

Tests (15% each):
There will be three in-class tests on the following days: NO MAKE-UP TESTS (except in EXTRAORDINARY circumstances and with advance notice), but see ``Exception'' below.
Final (40%)
comprehensive (including Chs. 17, 18)
Fri. 12 Dec., 1:00-3:45 p.m.
Exception
Your final exam score will be used in place of your lowest in-class test score, if this increases your overall class average.

Attendance Policy:

On-time attendance at all classes is required. If you have more than three unexcused absences, your overall course grade will be reduced by seven points; more than six, and you will be dropped with an F. Unexcused late arrivals or early departures will count as half an unexcused absence. I will usually excuse an absence if you tell me about it in advance, or, in cases of emergencies, as soon as possible afterwards.

Drop date:

The deadline for student initiated drops with an automatic W is Fri. Oct. 17. There is no longer a separate "faculty drop date"!

Goal of the course:

The goal of the calculus sequence is to obtain a solid understanding of the concepts of function, derivative, and integral equally well from numerical, graphical, and symbolic points of view, and to be able to express your understanding in written or spoken form, using correct language and grammar. In dealing with a problem to which calculus is applicable, you should be able to use whichever point of view is most effective. You will also understand when it is appropriate to use technology, when a purely symbolic approach is more effective, and how to mix the two.

In this course, we will study differentiation and integration of functions of several variables, optimization, vectors and vector fields, and parametric curves.

In all chapters, you will experience open-ended problems, problems which require written commentary rather than a string of symbols or numbers, and problems for which different answers may be equally correct.

Required Reading: Preface: pages v, vi, xi. Pay particular attention to the third bullet on page xi.

More Reading: Read each section that we cover in class, both before and after class.

The textbook is written in a way designed to make it easier for you to read and understand than "traditional" textbooks. This doesn't mean that you can read the text as quickly as, say, a history text; you still need to work and do examples on your own. We will be spending some time in class learning how to effectively read a math textbook.

Warning: Sometimes, I will not "cover" all the material from a section, but instead focus on a particular aspect of the section. In such cases, I will point out in class (and at this website) which other parts of the section I expect you to read on your own.