MATH 171 SPRING, 1996

SYLLABUS

INSTRUCTOR:

Ginger Warfield (a.k.a. Dr. Virginia M. Warfield)

Office:

Padelford C-437

Phone:

543-7445 (office) or
329-0376 (home--8:00 A.M.-10:30 P.M. weekdays, noon-10:30 P.M. weekends)

e-mail address:

warfield@math.washington.edu

OFFICE HOURS:

Mondays 11:00-11:55; Wednesdays 3:15-4:15

T.A.:

Adam Nyman. His "office" hours will be in the computer lab after we start on LOGO. His e-mail address is nyman@math.washington.edu

TEXT:

There is no text, but you do need to buy Mindstorms, by Seymour Papert , and a spiral notebook for your journal. In addition, there will from time to time be notes to pick up at one of the Copy Centers, and/or geometry manipulatives and teaching devices to buy. I will keep you posted on those. You will also need two floppy disks (the small rigid kind--and it would be convenient if you could get them formatted for Macintosh).

COURSE FORMAT :

The giving of exams is not consistent with my interpretation of what's important about this course, so I do not plan to give any. Grading will instead be based on day-to-day assignments (plan on having between two and three hours' worth per class), class participation (usually there will be some group activity to turn in, but in any case your presence counts) and a set of major projects (probably five of them, of which details will follow.) You will also be keeping up a journal, which I will describe on day one. To receive credit for the course you must have credit for at least 80% of the assignments, for at least 80% of the classes, for the journal, and for all of the projects. If you do not receive credit for a project the first time you turn it in, I will tell you what to fix, and you will be able to turn it in again.