Math 261 FALL 2008, Honors Calculus

• Instructor Jon Brundan
• Office Hours for Fall 2008: M 3:00-4:00, U 1:00-2:00, W 9:00-10:00 Fenton 319.
• Please talk to me in class if you cannot make these office hours, and we can arrange an alternative time. You could also use e-mail to ask questions....
• Class meets MUWF 2:00-3:00, Deady 307.
• Book: Calculus, M. Spivak, third edition.
• Syllabus: roughly chapters 1-10.
• Table of common mathematical shorthand (PDF format).
• Homework Assignments (25%). to be collected on WEDNESDAYS, first due W Oct 8. I expect you to download these homeworks from my homework web page yourself! Often I post solutions to the previous homeworks and other hand outs on this page too - make time to look at these each week. Late homework will not be accepted. Not all of the assigned homework problems will be graded.
• Test dates:
  • Midterm 1(15%): U Oct 28.
  • Midterm 2(20%): U Nov 18.
  • Final (40%): M Dec 8, 3.15pm.
  You must bring photo ID to the midterms and the final.
• Grading: Homework 25%, midterms 35%, final 40%.
• Last day to drop: S Nov 16.
• I usually treat the Tuesday class as an extended office hour and devote the time to doing examples, answering homework questions and any other questions people have. You should plan to do as much of the homework as you can BEFORE the Tuesday class so that by the end of class on Tuesday you are ready to finish all the homework to be turned in the following day. The exception to this rule is on the weeks when there is a midterm -- on these two weeks you're on your own for homework!
• Please remember that if you miss a class, it is your responsibility to find out what happened in that class. You can usually pick up any handouts from the homeworks web page.
• Things to expect from honors calculus:
  • It's abstract. To cope with this, you must think about what we are doing in class and why - always strive to work out the big picture for yourself.
  • Homeworks are difficult. You should not expect to be able to do all of them without help, and may have to work for a long time even to do a little. Everyone finds this and I am aware of the problems! Hard work and practice is the only way to master difficult mathematics. I do encourage you to find someone else in the class who is at the same level as you and work with them on homeworks. Just make sure you are understanding and learning from the homework -- not just copying what your friend tells you without digesting it!
  • Ideas and concepts build on one another. It is important not to get behind or you will get lost. You should go over class notes every day and try to understand for yourself what is being done, especially when we meet new definitions.
  • The book is challenging. But it is a great book and worth a lot of effort trying to read and make sense of it. Reading advanced math texts is a skill which you learn over time.
  • Its all worth it! People who have been through honors calculus before all say - with hindsight - that they are glad they stuck with it, even though it was tough at the time. Once you've done this, all other math classes should be easy!
  
  
  Jonathan Brundan
  Department of Mathematics
  University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1222 USA
  Phone 1-541-346-5626
  Email: brundan@uoregon.edu
  Web: http://uoregon.edu/~brundan/teaching.php