Fall 2011
Introduction
Professor: Jeff Johannes
Section 1 R 4:00 - 4:50p Newton 203
Office: South
326A
Telephone: 245-5403
Office Hours: Monday 11:30a - 12:20p, Wednesday 4-5p,
Thursday 1-2p, 8-9p, Friday 2:30 - 3:30p. and by appointment or
visit
Email Address: Johannes@Geneseo.edu
IM: JohannesOhrs
Web-page:
http://www.geneseo.edu/~johannes
Overview
The class will begin with students sharing their
interests in mathematics and motivations for becoming mathematics
majors. Through various faculty visits and departmental
colloquia, students will be introduced to a wide range of topics and
problems in mathematics. The class will culminate with
detailed student presentations of interesting mathematics problems.
Aside from all that, we will begin each class by
discussing
any thoughts and reactions to your first-year experiences at Geneseo.
Participation
Since most of the class is discussion, the class
will only truly be helpful if you are there and participating. If
you are present for a discussion
you will receive one participation point that day. If you also
participate
to the class as a whole (answer a question, present a solution, ask an
insightful question or offer important relevant commentary) you will
receive
two participation points for that day. Present each day and never
speaking in class will earn 80%. Speaking every other day will
earn
95%. Scores between will be scaled linearly.
Presentations
You will give two evaluated presentations during this
course. The first will be at least two minutes long, will include
notes, and will describe what led you to becoming a mathematics major.
Your second presentation will be about some mathematics not
taught in your high school or college classes that you find
interesting. Your second presentation must be at least ten
minutes long.
Reports
After attending a mathematics department colloquium
or faculty visit (or other approved mathematics presentation) you may
write a report. In your report, please explain the main point of
the presentation and include a discussion of how this presentation
affected your views on mathematics.
A – Well written, answers the questions, and is interesting and insightful
B – Well written and answers the questions
C – Well written or
answers the questions (convinces the reader that you were there)
D – attempted
Papers are due the week after the presentation. I will gladly look at papers before they are due to provide comments.
Grading
Your grade in this course will be three-tenths based on
your participation. One fifth of your grade will be based on each
of your reports and your final presentation. The remaining
portion of your grade will come from your introductory presentation.
Feedback
Occasionally you will be given
anonymous feedback forms. Please use them to share any thoughts
or concerns for how the course is running. Remember, the sooner
you tell me your concerns, the more I can do about them. I have
also created a web-site
which accepts anonymous comments.
If we have not yet discussed this in class, please encourage me to
create a class code. This site may also be accessed via our course
page on a link entitled anonymous
feedback. Of
course, you are always welcome to approach me outside of class to
discuss these issues as well.
Religious Holidays
It is my policy to give students who miss class
because of observance of religious holidays the opportunity to make up
missed work. You are responsible for notifying me no later than
September 17 of plans to observe the holiday.
Schedule
Septmeber 1 Introductions
September 8 Introductory Presentations
September 15 Rest of introductory presentations
September 22 Kalyani Madhu
September 29 debrief colloquium &c.
October 6 Laurel Miller-Sims
October 13 Lew Friedland
October 20 Elizabeth Wilcox
October 27 Advisement, Registration and Secondary Certification.
November 3 Tony Macula
November 10 Chi-Ming Tang
November 17 PRISM & Aaron Heap
December 1 Lisa Smith
December 8 Final Presentations
December 15 3:30 - 6:30p Final Presentations
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will be able to
recognise several areas of mathematics beyond calculus,
suggest opening steps for diverse problems,
express their interest in mathematics
and
write precisely about mathematics.