By the end of this course, you will be able to:
There will be approximately 6 week-long homeworks and one half week homework (during the last week of the quarter).
Homeworks are both a chance for you to improve your understanding and for us to evaluate how well you understand the material. For that reason, although you are encouraged to discuss the problems with one another, you must still write up solutions on your own. More details are included in the academic integrity policy.
At the end of the quarter, we will add together all points you earned on the homeworks and divide that by the total number of points possible to get your homework average.
For each lecture, there will be a small Gradescope quiz reviewing the concepts covered in that lecture. The material in this course builds on itself quickly: concept checks are a good way for you to detect misconceptions and ask questions early. Concept checks are due right before the next lecture at 12:00pm. For example, a concept check released on Wednesday will be due Friday at 12:00pm.
Because the goal of concept checks is practice, we count them differently in the gradebook. At the end of the quarter, we will add together your points on all concept checks. Your `average' on concept checks will be min{1, points earned / (.9*points possible)}. That is, getting 90% of the points on concept checks is enough to get full-credit (and you cannot get extra credit by getting a higher score).
The goal is to make these assignments a low-stakes way to get quick feedback on what you don't understand.
This course is designed to introduce concepts in lectures and give you practice with them in sections. As a result, trying the problems associated with each section is extremely important for success in the course.
Each week, TAs will record everyone who came to section and participated. "Participated" means you're working on the problems, and talking with those around you.
If you cannot attend section in-person, you may do the section problems on your own and submit them to your TA(s) for credit. Each week, the problems to do will be posted on the course calendar for the day of the section. Attempts at the problems must be written and emailed to the TA(s) for your section by Sunday at 11:59 PM following the section.
We will have 7 in-person quizzes during the first 10-15 minutes of lecture on Fridays. Coming late to class may result in having less time to complete the quiz. Only your top 5 quiz scores will be factored into your quiz grade, this means that you can miss up to 2 quizzes and still get full credit for the quizzes. Makeups for quizzes will not be offered as we will go over the solutions right after the quiz is completed. Topics for the quizzes will be shared ahead of time and working through section problems on Thursdays will help you prepare. The goal of the quizzes is to give you an opportunity to test your understanding of the concepts before the exams.
We will have an in-person midterm during lecture time on Wednesday July 23rd at 12pm. The goal of the midterm is to prepare you for the final and check in with where you are at with the content. Details about the midterm and practice material will be shared a week in advance of the midterm. If the midterm is missed due to extenuating circumstances, please email Anna as soon as you can, so that we can discuss your options.
We will have an in-person final exam that will be split into two parts. The first half of the final will take place in your assigned section room August 21st at 12pm. The second half of the final will take place during lecture time August 22nd at 12pm. The final will be cumulative but focus more on the latter part of the course. Details about the final and practice material will be shared a week in advance of the final. If the final is missed due to extenuating circumstances, please email Anna as soon as you can, so that we can discuss your options.
The course staff is made up of people, that means we sometimes make mistakes! When those mistakes happen in grading, we want to correct them.
Grades will be based on homework assignments, concept checks, section participation, quizzes, a midterm, and a final. Please note that these breakdowns are preliminary as this class is constantly evolving and we reserve the right to change them.
Students often wonder whether the class is "curved." For example, whether the median course grade must be some specified value, or if we have a maximum amount of "good" grades we can assign. We do not "curve" in either of these senses. We do, though, look at the performance of students this quarter relative to other quarters (especially where homework problems were similar) to try to keep grades consistent between different quarters (that is that similar levels of understanding of the content would lead to similar grades). This process means that before we have collected all the grades, we don't know exactly where gradebreaks will be.
You will have 2 penalty free late days to use for each homework assignment (except the last homework) as long as a meaningful attempt has been submitted by the original deadline. A meaningful attempt should demonstrate that you have thought about and worked through the majority of every problem on the homework. If you do not submit a meaningful attempt by the original deadline a penalty of 25% per day will be applied to your homework score.
Submissions after 48 hours will not be accepted unless prior arrangements are made with Anna.
You may not use late days on concept checks during the quarter.
Late days are designed to handle the “normal” difficulties in a quarter (e.g. prioritizing different courses, fundraising for an RSO, a minor cold, or attending a relative’s birthday dinner). If your situation goes beyond those “normal” circumstances, you should contact the course staff as early as you can. Depending on the situation, extra late days, dropping assignments, or other accommodations may be appropriate. The earlier you contact us, the more options we will have available.
We want to make sure that you fully understand and internalize the approach to the materials. So, we take academic integrity very seriously. We will refer violations of our policies to the Office of Academic Affairs.
Be sure that you are able to explain and/or re-derive anything that you submit. If we have doubts about whether you did the work on your own, we may ask you to come in and explain your solution to us verbally.
You are allowed (and encouraged!) to discuss homework problems with other students, as long as you:
If you are confused as to whether or not some collaboration is allowed, ask us! No set of rules will be completely exhaustive.
If something weird happens, please tell us too! We will not consider any action to be a violation of the academic integrity policy if you tell us about it before turning in the assignment.
You are strongly encouraged to seek out resources beyond official course resources, with the following caveats:
You may not utilize artificial intelligence or machine learning systems (e.g., ChatGPT) on any assignments (including homeworks and concept checks). That means you may not plug the homework problems into these systems (even if you later put the response in your own words), nor can you put a draft submission into the system to use the system for editing purposes.
There are a variety of reasons for this policy
Ed is our discussion board and the right place to ask any questions about the course.
We will happily answer questions from lecture or about general concepts. We also will answer clarifications about homework (e.g. correcting typos). Students are encouraged to answer each other’s questions on the message board as well.
If you have a question that might reveal your approach or the solution to a homework problem, you must ask the question privately. For accommodations and other private questions, you can ask privately on Ed or email the instructor. Only you and the course staff can see a private question on Ed.
Gradescope is the tool to turn in completed assignments. After grading, you can also find our feedback there and submit regrade requests if needed.
You will get an automatic email with account setup instructions before Concept Check 1 is due.
We will not be consistently updating canvas. Information on canvas may be partial or inaccurate for large portions of the quarter, you should not rely on it for this course. We may use canvas's gradebook at the end of the quarter, but we will announce which information should be relied on and when.
Zoom is how meetings that must be virtual will be delivered. That includes at least some office hours throughout the quarter. You can find meeting IDs in a pinned post on the Ed discussion board.
Office Hours: You can attend any Office Hours, not just the ones held by the TA who teaches your section. They do get busier closer to deadlines, so it is better to attend them early and throughout the week.
Zoom meetings will be restricted to accounts logged in with @uw.edu email addresses. If you have trouble joining a meeting, make sure you choose the “Sign in with SSO” option.
Your performance in this course should not be affected by circumstances beyond your control. We can still work with you for situations other than the university-wide accommodations. If anything does come up, you should contact the course staff as early as you can.
If you have, or think you may have, a temporary health condition or permanent disability, contact Disability Resources for Students (DRS) to get started with accommodations. In some prior quarters, DRS has become overwhelmed with new requests and were slow to process them. We strongly recommend reaching out as soon as possible, as we are unable to provide certain accommodations (e.g., extra testing time) except as decided on by DRS.
“Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (/staff-faculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (/students/religious-accommodations-request/).”
Late days are intended to handle "normal" issues during the quarter. Additional accommodations (e.g. extra late days or longer extensions on specific assignments) may be possible if you have an extended illness. Contact Anna as soon as possible if your illness is severe or extends for a long period.
We will be recording lectures and posting to Panopto so you can keep up/catch back up when you're healthy.
Don't come to a quiz if you're sick! Two quizzes will be dropped to account for sicknesses during the quarter.
Don't come to the exam if you're sick! Contact Anna once you know you're too sick to attend, and we will discuss your options.