Instructor: Emily Cliff.
Lectures: MWF 1--1:50pm, 314 Altgeld Hall.
Office hours: Tuesday 11--11:50am and Friday 9--10:50am, 165 Altgeld Hall (or by appointment).
Discussion sections: meet each Tuesday and Thursday; instructors, times, and locations.
Tutoring room: Monday--Thursday 4--8pm in 147 Altgeld Hall.
Online forum: Piazza group for Math 241.
Detailed course diary: Topics, lecture notes, homework assignments, worksheets, etc.
Evening Midterm 1: Tuesday, February 12 from 7 to 8:15pm.
Evening Midterm 2: Tuesday, March 12 from 7 to 8:15pm.
Evening Midterm 3: Tuesday, April 16 from 7 to 8:15pm.
Final Exam: Friday, May 3. Do not plan to leave before the last day of finals.
Wednesday, 8 May. Your grades for individual assignments, worksheets, and i-clicker scores are now on Moodle. If you had an excused absence which is not appearing correctly on Moodle, please email me (if it's an exam or an i-clicker score) or your TA (for worksheets or quizzes) to remind us, by forwarding to us the email thread where we discussed the excused absence earlier in the semester. The deadline to do this is this Friday, May 10. (I did my best to keep track of all these emails, but it is possible something got missed!)
Monday, 29 April. The final exam is this Friday, May 3. See below for office hour times this week.
Tuesday, 23 April. If you want to come to a review session next week before the final exam, please indicate your availability using this form, so I can choose a good time.
Friday, 5 April. A reminder that today's office hours will end at 9:50 instead of 10:50, since I am giving the lecture in the other 241 section at 10am. Please email me for an appointment if this time doesn't work for you.
Sunday, 10 March. There is lecture at the usual time on Wednesday, March 13. There will be no lecture and no office hours on Friday, March 15. Happy Spring Break!
Sunday, 10 March. Midterm 2 is on Tuesday, March 12. There will be extra office hours on Monday, March 11, from 2 to 3pm, in addition to the usual office hours on Tuesday from 11am to 12pm. The math tutoring hours are on Monday from 4 to 8pm and on Tuesday from 4 to 6pm.
Friday, 1 March. Midterm 2 is on Tuesday, March 12. See the exam webpage for details. In particular, the deadline to sign up for the conflict exam is next Tuesday, 5 February.
Friday, 1 March. The deadline to register your i-clicker is tomorrow, Saturday 2 March. If you're not getting points in Moodle for your i-clicker responses, send me an email with your name, i-clicker number, and netID.
Friday, 1 March. The deadline to drop the course is next Friday, 8 March.
Thursday, 14 February. All homework assignments must be turned in by 8am on the day that they are due. This was stated at the beginning of the semester, and is on the course webpage, but we have recently realised that the WebAssign settings were different for different sections of the course, and you may have previously been able to submit homework later than the deadline. We have now fixed this problem, so starting Monday no late assignments will be accepted.
Thursday, 14 February. The midterm exams have been graded and returned (via email). If you think a mistake was made in the grading, you can submit a request to your TA in writing/by email, stating exactly what you think the mistake was. The deadline for requesting a regrade is next Thursday, 21 February.
Sunday, 10 February. Office hours are rearranged this week so that there are more of them before the midterm. Monday, 2--2:50pm; Tuesday, 11am--12:20pm; and Friday, 9--9:50am.
Monday, 4 February. Midterm 1 is next Tuesday, February 12. See the exam webpage for details. In particular, the deadline to sign up for the conflict exam is tomorrow, 5 February.
Thursday, 31 January. Prof. Tolman will be giving a make-up lecture covering Wednesday's material on Friday, 1 February, in 341 Altgeld Hall, 3--3:50pm. Students from all sections are welcome to attend. The material covered is all contained in the lecture notes and videos posted on the course diary, so don't worry if you can't make it, but if you'd like to see it explained in person, here's your chance.
Tuesday, 29 January. Wednesday's lecture (i.e. 29 January) has been cancelled due to cold weather. Course notes and videos will be posted on the course diary soon. Math tutoring hours are also cancelled for Wednesday, but instructors will be active on Piazza, so please post any questions you have there.
Thursday, 24 January. The tutoring room has been moved to 147 Altgeld Hall. It will be there for the rest of the semester. Hours are unchanged.
Feel free to bring food to the review sessions, since they are happening at meal-times. However, please avoid bringing fish or nuts.
The focus of this course is vector calculus, which concerns functions of several variables and functions whose values are vectors rather than just numbers. In this broader context, we will revisit notions like continuity, derivatives, and integrals, as well as their applications (such as finding minima and maxima). We'll explore new geometric objects such as vector fields, curves, and surfaces in 3-space and study how these relate to differentiation and integration. The highlight of the course will be theorems of Green, Stokes, and Gauss, which relate seemingly disparate types of integrals in surprising ways.
For most people, vector calculus is the most challenging term in the calculus sequence. There are a larger number of interrelated concepts than before, and solving a single problem can require thinking about one concept or object in several different ways. Because of this, conceptual understanding is more important than ever, and it is not possible to learn a short list of "problem templates" in lecture that will allow you to do all the homework and exam problems. Thus, while lecture and section will include many worked examples, you will still often be asked to solve a homework problem that doesn't match up with one that you've already seen. The goal here is to get a solid understanding of vector calculus so you can solve any such problem you encounter in mathematics, the sciences, or engineering.
Here is a list of objectives, describing the skills you should acquire throughout the course. Note that although the objectives are divided by midterm, the course is cumulative, and it will often be necessary to use skills from earlier sections of the course to meet later objectives.
We will cover Chapters 12 through 16 of Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 8th edition, by James Stewart, with Enhanced WebAssign.
Please note that this course uses the 8th edition, not the 7th. You will need WebAssign access to do the homework. Here is complete information on purchasing options for both. If you have the standard text and WebAssign package from Math 220, 221, or 231 from last year, then you already have everything you need for this course.
If you haven't decided whether you're going to stay in this course, you can access WebAssign for free without purchasing it for the first two weeks of term, so you can still submit your homework assignments. After this time, you will have to pay to access WebAssign.
Your grade will be based on classroom participation via i>clicker (2%), the online homework (7%), section worksheets (4%), section quizzes (3%), three midterm exams (18% each) and a comprehensive final exam (30%). Grade cutoffs on any component will never be stricter than 90% for an A- grade, 80% for a B-, and so on. Individual exams may have grade cutoffs set more generously depending on their difficulty.
There will be three evening midterm exams, which will be held from 7:00 to 8:15pm on February 12, March 12, and April 16. There will be a final exam held TBA. The date and time will be scheduled by the registrar near the end of February; until this date is announced, make no plans to leave campus prior to Saturday, May 11..
All exams will be closed book and notes, and no calculators or other electronic devices (e.g. cell phones) will be permitted; where space is provided, all work must be shown to receive any credit on a problem.
We will begin using i>clicker on Wednesday, January 16, although the first week's scores will not count towards your final grade. Your participation will help you engage with the material in lecture, and will help me gauge whether people are following the class discussion. You will receive one point per day based on your participation in i>clicker polling, rather than the accuracy of your responses; I will drop at least four zeros for the semester.
You can find more information on i>clicker here. You must purchase an i>clicker to use in the class; you do not need the newer version, which would be necessary for answering short answer or numerical questions, because all questions will be in multiple choice format.
You must register your i>clicker through Moodle, as soon as possible but definitely no later than February 10, 2019. If you do not register through Moodle, you will not receive credit for your answers.
Homework will be assigned for each lecture, and will generally be due two lectures later, at 8am. That is, homework based on Monday's lecture is due Friday at 8am, and Wednesday's is due on the following Monday, etc. The homework will be completed online via WebAssign. Late homework will not be accepted, but the lowest 4 scores will be dropped. To access WebAssign login here using your U of I netid and password:
You may need to wait 24--48 hours after registering for the course to be able to log in to WebAssign. For technical problems, contact WebAssign student support; for questions or concerns about homework grades, talk to your TA.
Note that while Homework 1, based on the the lecture from the first day, Monday, January 14, is due on Friday morning at 8am as explained above, there is an additional homework, Homework 0, which is due on Wednesday, January 16 at 8am. It covers only material from the syllabus. Any students who register late must still complete Homework 0.
Most section meetings will include either a worksheet or a quiz. The former will be graded for effort and participation and the latter for accuracy. Missing either results in a score of zero, but the lowest three worksheet scores and the lowest quiz score will be dropped.
If you have a conflict with one of the exam times, please consult the university policy on evening midterm exams and final exam conflicts. Based on that, if you think your situation qualifies you to take the conflict exam, you need to fill out this webform at least one week before the exam date. You will need to provide documentation as to the nature of your conflict, and I reserve final judgement as to which exam you will take.
There will be no make-up exams. Rather, in the event of a valid illness, accident, or family crisis you can be excused from an exam so that it does not count toward your overall average. Such situations must be documented and I reserve final judgement as to whether an exam will be excused. All such requests should be made to me in advance if possible, but in any event no more than one week after the exam date.
Generally, these are taken care of with the policy of dropping the lowest scores. For extended absences, these are handled in the same was as missed exams.
The section leaders and I try hard to accurately grade all exams, quizzes, worksheets, and homework, but please contact your TA if you think there is an error. All requests for regrading must be made within one week of the item being returned.
You can always find the details of your worksheet, quiz, i-clicker, and exam scores on Moodle. Details of your homework scores can be viewed on WebAssign, and are only entered into the Moodle system as an overall average at the end of the semester.
Since there are more than 250 people in the room, it's particularly important to arrive on time, remember to turn off your cell phone, refrain from talking, not pack up your stuff up until the bell has rung, etc. Otherwise it will quickly become hard for the other students to pay attention.
Cheating is taken very seriously as it takes unfair advantage of the other students in the class, and is handled as per Article 1 Part 4 of the student code. Penalties for cheating on exams, in particular, are very high, typically resulting in a 0 on the exam or an F in the class.
Students with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations should contact me as soon as possible. In particular, any accommodation on exams must be requested at least a week in advance and will require a letter from DRES.
These are not offered for this section of Math 241. Those interested in such credit should enroll in one of the honors sections of this course.
This applies to both the main lecture and the sections. The lecture may be large, but I still strongly encourage you to ask questions there. If you're confused about something, then several dozen other people are as well.
Come and work with the TAs and your classmates on homework, test preparation, and any general questions about Math 241 on any Monday--Thursday from 4pm to 8pm in 147 Altgeld Hall. The tutoring room will be staffed starting January 16.
This online discussion forum is another place to go to get your questions answered by your classmates, TAs, and Math 241 lecturers. Sign up here, using your University of Illinois email. This is a non-judgemental forum, where you can ask any questions about the course material as well as the course logistics; you should also feel free to jump in and answer questions whenever you have something helpful to contribute. You can choose to post anonymously if that makes you feel more comfortable (although in the event that something offensive is posted, the instructors will be able to determine the person who posted it). The more we all use this forum, the more valuable it will be for everyone.
All non-confidential questions should be posted to Piazza rather than sent by email to me or your TAs. Check whether someone else has already asked that question before you post. These simple steps will save everyone time and your question is more likely to be answered quickly.
I have office hours on Tuesdays 11--11:50am and Fridays 9--10:50am in 165 Altgeld Hall. If none of those times work for you, you can make an appointment by sending me an email or talking to me after class.
A change of perspective is sometimes helpful to clear up confusion. Here are two other vector calculus sources you might find helpful. They are both on reserve at the Math Library in Altgeld Hall: