Due Sunday, September 6, 11:59pm
Watch the video linked in the above tweet. As Snoop Dogg says, ya gotta read the syllabus! We went over everything on our course website during our course launch on Thursday but you probably still have questions. It’s a lot of information! Most of it is linked from the syllabus page.
For this OpenLab assignment, first read the syllabus (and linked information), then submit a comment on this post asking whatever questions you have about how this course will run: grades, schedules, your responsibilities…whatever!
If you know the answer to someone else’s question, reply to their comment with the answer.
I know that we have gone over the syllabus and everything that is included during class. My question is regarding the midterms, quizzes, final exams and where are they going to take place. Is it going to be on blackboard or zoom? And what day Tuesday or Thursday during class hours? My last question is, are they going to be a makeup exam? if, for example, you weren’t able to take it the same day as everyone else because of an emergency.
I’m pretty sure the quiz and exams will be taken on Webwork. I think that the days will depend on the professor or the college. For makeup exams, I’m not 100% sure but if there was a family emergency, that person might be excused but again, I’m not 100% sure. I think it all depends on the professor.
Excellent question Ines! Aram’s got some of the details right. I haven’t posted about these details yet because I’m not 100% sure myself how tests and exams will go, but I’ll tell you what I know now here and then I’ll update everyone once the details are nailed down.
The Math Department hasn’t made an official announcement about how final exams will be delivered yet, but I should hear soon. Whatever details the department decides about final exams, I plan to just copy those for the two term tests as well.
There’s a good chance that final exams will be delivered the same way they were last semester, so let me tell you how those worked because that *might* be how our exams will work this semester. As Aram said, students accessed their exam questions on WeBWorK. The WeBWorK exam was open for 2 days but once a student clicked “take test” they had 2 hours to complete it. This was like a take-home exam, so students could choose whatever 2-hours during those 2 days to take the test (but once the WeBWorK timer starts, it keeps going even if a student logs out).
Students then submitted their complete written work as a single PDF…my students submitted their written work using a Dropbox file request…just like you are all practicing with now for this week’s assignment. That’s what I graded. Students who were not able to take the exam during the designated 2 days took a make-up exam a few days later.
Like I said, none of this is official yet for this semester, but I *think* we’ll do something like what I described. I should be able to tell you for sure in the next few weeks.
There isn’t any particular question about the syllabus of this course, but there are questions regarding the hw questions. As webwork has difficulties at times to understand the answers we put, will we be given a chance at the end of the course to do what we have missed? Also, during exams will we be on zoom while taking the exam? Will the lowest test grade be dropped? For the Thursday study session, as we can join any group through zoom, is there a limit to how many people can be in the group?
Hi Schear. For WeBWorK, you should complete the sets before the deadlines set out in the Week-by-week schedule. Also check out what’s written about WeBWorK on the grading policy page: “A student who correctly completes half of the WeBWorK questions throughout the semester will receive full credit for their WeBWorK grade; other WeBWorK grades will be scaled accordingly.”
I’ll say more about tests and exams in response to Ines’s question above. The lowest test grade will not be dropped. Check out the grading policy page: you’ll have two term tests plus one final exam. Each is worth 10% of your overall grade.
For the Thursday Zoom sessions, you can join any group you like and you can jump around from Zoom to Zoom to see who’s there from different groups. This week you *should* at least start in your assigned group. In a few weeks, we’ll see how this is going. We might reshuffle the groups or we might do something more structured with the study group time. Zoom will take attendance and I’ll look at the reports to see which groups are most active.
My only syllabus question is how attendance will be marked if this course is asynchronous, since Tuesday will be COLD session and Thursday is Study session?
Hi Aram. Good question! I haven’t been tracking attendance much so far since Zoom can do that for me, but I will need to submit a report to the Math Department at the end of the semester. You are expected to attend your one-on-one HOT topics session every week, and at least the CO (check-in online) at the beginning of the Tuesday COLD sessions, so that’s the attendance I’ll include in the report. (If I can figure out a good way to do it later in the semester, I’ll give participation credit for students who attend the Thursday study group sessions…I’ll let everyone know if that becomes possible.)
Question: According to the grading policy, you said that if we “complete half of the WeBWorK questions throughout the semester, we receive full credit for their WeBWorK grade”. Why do we only need to complete half of the WeBWorK questions, and not all of the questions to receive full credit? (Although I will obviously complete as many questions as I can).
Also, what do you mean when other WeBWorK grades be scaled accordingly?
Good catch, Anthony! You will be completing A LOT of WeBWorK homework questions throughout the semester (over 400 questions total). The point of WeBWorK is to practice, so I definitely want everyone to try to complete all the questions. But for the WeBWorK grade, you only have to answer half of the questions correctly for full credit.
So if there are 435 questions total, and you answer 218 questions correctly, then your WeBWorK grade will be 100%. If you answer 145 questions correctly, then your WeBWorK grade will be 67%. (With 435 questions total, your score will be the number of correct answers out of 218….this is what “scaled accordingly” means.)
My question is for webwork. Do we get an extension on the homework if the website is down?
Hi Rafael. If it’s a long outage (like the one we’re currently experiencing!) then absolutely yes. I’ll extend the deadline as soon as I can log in.
My question is about the final how is it going to work. Is going to be like last semester where we had two chance to do the final or are we only going to have one chance to take it on webwork.
Hi Erik. Firm decisions on the final exam haven’t been made yet, but I *think* the structure will be like in the spring, where (most) students were able to take two versions over the two days. I’ll be able to tell you something more concrete soon.