The Course:

This is an internet course. There will be weekly/biweekly on line lectures and assignments that will appear on the Assignments page. In addition there will be a weekly problem posted in Discussion Forum, Forum. The problem is meant to form the basis for discussion among members of the class. Marks will be given for participation - this means exactly that. You need not have a solution, but good questions, reformulating the problem, simply being logical, these are all important aspects of the type of participation I am looking for. The Discussion Forum is also a place where you can ask any question whatsoever about course material. Helping one of your fellow students with their questions is an important aspect of the Discussion Forum. Full participation in the Discussion Forum is absolutely essential. If you have questions or difficulties, post your questions. If you do not ask, we cannot help.

Course etiquette that requires that all postings to the Discussion Forum be phrased respectfully. Postings deemed offensive will be deleted and an offending individual may be denied for some time the privilege of posting.

The course is meant to introduce you to the critical aspects of mathematics that will help you in future courses where the use mathematics or critical thinking are of essential importance. The course is different in many ways from the traditional "pre-calculus" course - most obviously in our approach that integrates precalculus topics with an introduction to differential calculus. Our view is that a preliminary study of calculus can be introduced early on and thereby provide a unified study of functions and their use in the in finding solutions to applied problems. Another way in which the course differs from others is that we start with a brief discussion of principles of logic which is then used throughout the course in a gradual development of the notion of a proof. In particular we do not shy away from a full rigorous but gentle discussion of limit, first for sequences and later for functions of a real variable. This is often a difficult topic for students and more than one exposure can be necessary, and for this reason it should be introduced sooner rather than later.

Materials

Text Editing Software
Homework assignments need to be submitted in one of two formats:
(1) Microsoft Word documents in which you make use of the "equation editor" for the composition of mathematics. Alternatively you can purchase Math Type which has somewhat more functionality and can be used in conjunction with other software as well.
(2) As a .pdf or .tex document created with some version of LaTex. LaTex is a scientific word processing system that takes a little getting used to - it has the advantage that many versions are absolutely free, but start-up time can be a problem.

Graphing Software:
It is absolutely essential that you acquire some type of graphing software. On the Mac this comes as part of the standard configuration. For the PC this is not the case, although there are a number of products available.

Texts for the Course
A large part of the material for the course will be contained in the Lectures and the associated text documents that will be posted. However you may be frequently directed to certain chapters of the following pre calculus text and calculus text for more complete coverage, additional examples and additional practice problems. Purchase of these texts is recommended but not essential. Both are available from the York University Bookstore or from many sources on the web. For the pre-calculus text there is also an accompanying Student Solutions manual which can be very useful. The calculus text is not expensive - which is good, for we will only be using the beginning chapters on differential calculus.

"Precalculus Mathematics for Calculus 5th ed." 2007, James Stewart, Lothar Redlin, Saleem Watson,Publishers: Brooks/Cole .

"Schaum's Outline of Calculus" Fourth Edition, 1999,
By Frank Ayres, Elliott Mendelson, ISBN: 0070419736, McGraw-Hill Professional

How to reach me:
email: walker@yorku.ca
phone: (not a good method) 736-5232
office: 2041 TEL
office hours: by appointment
On-line tutorial help:
An on-line tutorial session will occur on each of two evenings per week for two hours in duration. Further details will be published in due time.

Grading:
Weekly assignments 30%
Term Tests 30%
Participation in on-line forum 10%
Final Exam 30%

Missed Tests and Assignments:
Assignments will be due on Wednesdays by 11:59 P.M. and must be submitted by email to: math1710@yorku.ca. Since solutions will be posted by the next day or soon there after, late assignments can not be accepted. However to accommodate those with legitimate excuses, the grade for this portion of the course will be calculated in such a way that if, for instance, the total number of assignments should be 20, then for all students only the best 18 will be considered in forming an average.
Similarly for for term tests, there are three scheduled but only the best two will be considered in forming an average.

Important Dates:
See the University web page, Important Dates