MATHEMATICS 103
Quantitative Methods
Grading |
Course Schedule |
Course policies |
Description: Mathematics 103 prepares students to be quantitatively literate citizens in today's world. By learning to think critiically about quantitative issues, students will be able to make responsible decisions in their daily lives. Problems are analyzed and solved using numerical, graphical, statistical, and algebraic reasoning. Technology is used to help visualize data and facilitate calculations, as well as to present quantitative output and verbal arguments.
Class Times: MWF 10:00am - 10:55am, T 12:00-12:55 pm
Location: P-107, Brumbaugh Science Center
Instructor: Dr. Henry E. Escuadro
Phone: (814) 641-3596
Office: A 304, Brumbaugh Academic Center
Center
E-mail: escuadro@juniata.edu
Office Hours: For the most up-to-date, see http://faculty.juniata.edu/escuadro/office.html
Textbook: Quantitative Reasoing, by Sevilla and Somers, ISBN: 1-931914-90-7
Grading:
Exam 01 (September 18, Friday)
50 points
Exam 02 (October 7,Wednesday)
50 points
Exam 03 (November 4, Wednesday)
50 points
Exam 04 (December 2, Wednesday) 50 points
There is NO Final Exam in this course
Activities turned-in
5 points
per graded Activity
Projects
20 points per graded Project
Class Attendance, Participation, and Professionalism 25 points
Course Policies: For the most up-to-date, see http://faculty.juniata.edu/escuadro/Ma103/policies.html
Partnerships: Teams of two are allowed (but not required) on Exams, Activities and Projects. Teams will be required on certain Activities as noted, but not all. Teamwork should be shared – and team membership is voluntary. Teams can be created and dissolved at will. If your partner is not contributing his/her fair share, you should feel free to form a new partnership or work on your own. If you hand in an assignment as a team of two, you are indicating that you worked together on every single problem. “You do the first two problems, I’ll do the last three,” or, even worse, “You do this week’s assignment and I’ll do next week’s” does not constitute acceptable collaboration and is an academic integrity violation.
Exams: Exams will be open book and open notebook. You may use your scientific calculator, and you may log-in to the computer at your desk and use a blank Excel spreadsheet or the calculator. You should not expect to encounter exam problems designed to require Excel, since the in-class exams will be designed to test conceptual understanding, not computational aptitude. During an exam you will not be allowed to use any other application, such as: email, a web-browser, instant-messaging, cell-phones, text-messaging, etc. There is a "Zero-Tolerance" policy for violation of this policy. That is if you use any of these applications during an exam, you will receive 0 points.
Laptops to class: This course relies heavily on active learning, especially with the computer-based Activities. Since the class room has fewer computers than students, several students will need to bring their laptop to class.
Graded Assignments: Typically students will begin one of the Activities from the text in each class session. While the entire Activity will be checked for completeness, a question or two randomly selected after the Activities are collected will be graded in detail. Over the course of the semester, between two and five Projects will also be assigned. The Projects are more in-depth and open-ended than the Activities (as well as worth more points), and are an opportunity for the student to apply the concepts previously covered. All Activities and Projects should be turned in for grading in the format specified.
Assignments accepted via Moodle are configured with the "upload and review" format, so students have the responsibility to double-check the file that they upload. If there is a problem, they can still upload the correct version. There will not be any opportunity to send the "correct version" of the file after the assignment is due.
Usually all the assigned Activities will be due at the beginning of class on Friday. It is the student's responsibility to be aware of, and plan for, the assignment deadline. Late assignments are accepted only at the discretion of the instructor, and if graded, they will be penalized.
Supplemental Homework Problems: Students should read the upcoming Topic prior to class, and attempt the suggested Exploration problems in the course schedule below. There will be time at the beginning of each class session for questions on Exploration problems. Completing these problems should help students prepare for the exams, and, in fact, these problems sometimes make great exam questions themselves!
Weekly Discussion Section: The weekly discussion section is designed to be a help session, where no new topics will be introduced. This hour is set aside for help on homework problems and/or computer assistance. Attendance at the weekly discussion section is optional if you currently have earned 80% or more of the total points; otherwise, attendance at the weekly discussion section is required. Failure to attend when required will be reflected in the participation grade. Students using Moodle to check their course average should remember to subtract off the ungraded points from the total points available.
Athletics and Extra-curricular activities: Students whose attendance might be affected by participation in extra-curricular activities should contact the instructor with their schedule in the first week of the semester.
Accomodations: If a student has an accomodation, the student is responsible for initiating the process to set up the accomodation. For example, if a student has an accomodation allowing them extra time to complete an exam, the student must approach the instructor to make arrangements for a time and place to take the exam.
Course Outline: Read sections of the text
prior to class, since much of the mathematical content is "review"
and class time may be more directed toward alternative methods and computer
implementation.
Code
of Conduct Keys
to Success Important Reminders
Notes and outlines as linked below are based on
material from the text by Sevilla and Somers, which is copyrighted. Use of this
material beyond the context of this course may infringe on the copyright of
those texts.
| Day | Topic | In-class Work | Out-of-class Work | |
| 00 M-08/24 |
Course Introduction | Data Survey Personal Survey (here are Prof. Escuadro's responses if you are interested) |
||
| 01 T-08/25 |
Assessment Day I | |||
| 02 W-08/26 |
Getting to know you... Topic 1: Charts and Graphs |
Assignment 01 Due: beginning of class on Mon, 08/31 |
Topic 1 Explorations: 1, 2, 3, 5 Read pages 1 - 7. |
|
| 03 Fr-08/28 |
Topic 1: Pie Charts click and scroll down for the worst Pie Chart "ever" |
continue Assignment 01 Due: beginning of class on Mon, 08/31 |
Topic 1 Explorations: 8, 10, 11 Read Pages 8 - 12. |
|
| 04 M-08/31 |
|
Assignment 02 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 09/04 |
Topic 1 Explorations: 6 Read pages 13 - 22. |
|
| 05 T-09/01 |
Starting today, this 4th hour is optional if you have 80% or more of the
available points (check Moodle). However, if you are barely halfway through doing Assignment 02, it would make sense for you to attend and work on Assignment 02. |
|||
|
W-09/02 |
Topic 2: Bivariate Data and Scatterplots |
continue Assignment 02 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 09/04 |
Topic 2 Explorations: 1, 2 Read pages 29 - 35. |
|
| 06 Fr-09/04 |
Meet with Reference Librarian to help determine "trustworthy" web-sites |
|||
| 07 M-09/07 |
Project 01 Analyzing and graphing student data, coinciding with web research |
Project 01 Due: 10:00 am on Mon, 09/21 |
||
| 08 W-09/09 |
Topic 2: Functions and Relations | Assignment 03 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 09/11 |
Topic 2 Explorations: 3, 6, 7 Read pages 36 - 41 |
|
| 09 Fr-09/11 |
Topic 3: Graphs of Functions |
Assignment 04 |
Topic 3 Explorations: 2, 3, 5, 8 | |
| 10 M-09/114 |
Topic 4: Multiple Variable Functions | continue Assignment 04 Due: beginning of class on Wed, 09/16 |
Topic 4 Explorations: 1, 4, 5 | |
| 11 W-09/16 |
Review Day / Work Problems | Spring 2008 Exam 01 Spring 2008 Exam 01 Key |
||
| 12 Fr-09/18 |
Exam 01 | |||
| 13 M-09/21 |
Topic 5: Directly Proportional and Linear Functions |
Assignment 05 Due: beginning of class on Wed, 09/23 |
Topic 5 Explorations: 1, 2, 5 | |
| 14 W-09/23 |
Topic 5: more Linear Functions, Inversely Proportional Functions, and more Concavity | continue Assignment 05 Assignment 06 |
Topic 5 Explorations: 6 | |
| 15 F-09/25 |
continue Assignment 06 |
Topic 6 Explorations: 5, 6, 8 | ||
| 16 M-09/28 |
Topic 6: Linear Regression | Assignment 07 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 10/02 |
Topic 6 Explorations: 2 (in Excel) | |
| 17 W-09/30 |
Topic 7: Logarithmic Scale |
continue Assignment 07 |
Topic 7 Explorations: 1, 2, 3, 5 | |
| 18 F-10/02 |
Topic 7: Estimation |
Assignment 08 Due: 1 pm on Tue, 10/06 |
Topic 7 Explorations: 4, 6, 8, 10 | |
| 19 M-10/05 |
Review Day / Work Problems |
Spring 2008 Exam 02 Spring 2008 Exam 02 Key |
||
| 20 W-10/07 |
Exam 02 | |||
21 |
Topic 8: Fog Index | Assignment 09 Due: beginning of class on Wed, 10/14 |
Topic 8 Explorations: 6, 7, 8 | |
| 22 M-10/12 |
Topic 8: Indexes
and Ratings CPI homepage |
continue Assignment 09 Due: beginning of class on Wed, 10/14 |
Topic 8 Explorations: 3, 4, 10 | |
| 23 W-10/14 |
Topic 9: Savings | Compound Interest Worksheet | Topic 9 Explorations: 3, 4, 6 | |
| 24 F-10/16 |
Topic 9: Loans |
Assignment 10 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 10/23 |
Topic 9 Explorations: 8, 9, 10 | |
| 25 W-10/21 |
Topic 14: Apportionment, Quota Methods National
Atlas |
continue Assignment 10 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 10/23 |
Topic 14 Explorations: 1, 5 | |
| 26 F-10/23 |
Project 2 Loan Analysis |
Project 02 Due: beginning of class on Friday, 11/06 |
||
| 27 M-10/26 |
National
Atlas |
Assignment 11 Due: end of class on Friday, 10/30 |
Topic 14 Explorations: 2, 3 | |
| 28 W-10/28 |
Topic 16: Averages and Five-Number Summary | Assignment 11 Due: end of class on Friday, 10/30 |
Topic 16 Explorations: 1, 2, 6, 7, 9 | |
| 29 F-10/30 |
Wiggle Room | |||
| 30 M- 11/02 |
Review Day / Work Problems | Spring 2008 Exam 03 Spring 2008 Exam 03 Key |
||
| 31 W-11/04 |
Exam 03 | |||
| 32 F-11/06 |
Topic 17: Standard Deviation, z-score |
Assignment 12 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 11/13 |
Topic 17 Explorations: 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9 | |
| 33 M-11/09 |
Topic 17: Normal Distributions Notes to help determine whether data is normally distributed |
continue Assignment 12 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 11/13 |
||
| 34 W-11/11 |
Topic 18: Basics of
Probability |
continue Assignment 12 Due: beginning of class on Fri, 11/13 |
Topic 18 Explorations: 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 | |
| 35 F-11/13 |
Topic 17 & 18 Problem Day | |||
| 36 M 11/16 |
Topic 19: Conditional Probability and Tables | Assignment 13 Due: 1 pm, Tuesday 11/24 |
Topic 19 Explorations: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 | |
| 37 W 11/18 |
Topic 20: Sampling
and Surveys |
continue Assignment 13 Due: 1 pm, Tuesday 11/24 |
Topic 20 Explorations: 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 | |
| 38 F-11/20 |
Project 03 Analyzing Data - Normally distributed? Notes to help determine whether data is normally distributed |
Project 03 Due: Thursday, 12/10, at 12 noon NO LATE PROJECTS WILL BE ACCEPTED |
||
| 39 M-11/23 |
Topic 19 Problem Day | |||
| 11/25 11/26 11/27 |
Thanksgiving Break | |||
| 40 M-11/30 |
Review Day / Work Problems | |||
| 41 W-12/02 |
Exam 04 | |||
| 42 Fr-12/04 |
Assessment Day II | |||
| 43 M-12/07 |
Survey students for their "Keys for Success" in MA 103 Time to work on final Project |
Discuss Participation Grade Survey | ||
| There is NO Final Exam in this course |
Important Note: There are many ways to get help with the technology
we use. Each of the Activities in your
textbook have detailed directions, and the Excel Commands by Activitiy
section provides the page containing the detail for each command. Additionally, the software we use has excellent
help features – take advantage! Finally,
you can always ask your professor when you need help.
The software we use is not hard to learn if you try, and we use it because it helps us understand the topic we are studying.