Nina Koch
Welcome to Quantitative Reasoning! In this course, you will be doing a lot of writing, a lot of thinking, and very little memorizing. The purpose of the course is to give you an opportunity to be a mathematician. You will experiment and investigate, make your own hypotheses and draw your own conclusions. To learn more about the specific topics in this course, see our mission statement.
You might have heard that this is the math class with no tests. It’s true! I have decided that one effective method of finding out what you know is to ask you to tell me what you know. You will do this through written homework assignments and a portfolio of four essays. Your portfolio will be evaluated by a rubric for assigning letter grades. Your grade for the course is composed of these parts:
| Portfolio | 40% |
| Homework | 30% |
| Class Participation | 20% |
| Exam | 10% |
I expect you to come to class on time, which means that you are in your seat and ready to work when the bell rings. I know that 7:45 is early, but that is when class starts. Please bring a scientific calculator, your notebook (three-ring binder is best), a completed homework assignment, and your intellectual curiosity.
Here is the amazing thing: your homework grade is entirely within your control. Anybody can get a 30 out of 30, just by turning in assignments on time. If you have difficulty with an assignment, you should still turn something in. Show me how far you got, explain to me which parts you find confusing, and suggest a time when you can come in for help. If your work on an assignment is not satisfactory, you will be asked to resubmit it. Once you do so, you will receive full credit for the assignment. And that is how you get a 30 out of 30!
If you know in advance that you will be absent from class on some particular day (e.g. for a field trip or college visit), you must get the homework due that day to me before you leave. Hand it to me, email it to me, or ask someone in the front office to time stamp it and put it in my mailbox.
Homework is due at the beginning of class, and will be considered late if it is turned in during the middle of class. Late homework receives half credit. If you neglect to resubmit an assignment, you will not receive any credit. Periodically on the calendar, you will see a day identified as "Deadline for lates and resubmits." Work submitted after this date will not be accepted.
I know that sometimes there are reasons why you cannot complete an assignment on time. For example, you might have an away game and get back very late and then your cat is missing and also you left your notebook at your father’s house. Things happen. In recognition of that, I will issue you two late homework coupons at the beginning of each trimester. Use these for those times when you just can’t get the assignment in on time. I don’t like trying to evaluate people’s reasons for late work (like was your cat really missing?). So I give you the coupons and let you decide when you need them.
If you have an IEP or a 504 plan that allows you extra time for assignments, you should meet with me at the beginning of the trimester to establish guidelines for turning in your work.
Just be sure to make an effort on every assignment, and you will be able to maintain a perfect homework average. It really helps your grade and furthermore it helps you to understand what is going on in class.
Your class participation grade will reflect the extent to which you make a positive contribution to the classroom as a learning environment. Get engaged in the discussion by speaking up when you have an idea and also by listening carefully to others.
Please don’t be nervous about the class participation component of your grade. You may be shy about speaking in front of the whole class. That’s OK. Many of our discussions will take place in pairs or small groups. As a group member, it’s just as important for you to say "I don’t understand your idea. Could you explain it again?" as it is to come up with the idea in the first place. Group members should be concerned about keeping everyone in the group involved in the collaborative work.
You are also responsible for maintaining a level of engagement during lab activities. If you believe you are "done" the lab, find a way to look at things more deeply, or to extend the ideas to a new version of the problem, or to generalize to a higher degree of abstraction. ALL of your class time will be spent on task. If you can’t think of anything to do, I’ll be happy to make suggestions. You are never done!
Of course, class attendance is very important. If you are absent, you must contact someone to find out what you missed, get notes, and also arrange with me to make up lab activities. Failure to do so will affect your class participation grade. Take advantage of this website, where you can find assignment calendars and all of our worksheets.
You should make every effort to avoid being absent from class. The nature of this course makes it hard to reproduce what went on in class.
You may at times feel a little lost with what we’re doing in class. Don’t worry; people are coming to this course with a wide variety of backgrounds in mathematics and I don’t expect everybody to know everything. Just be sure you take responsibility for helping yourself get "found."
I’m available for extra help in Room 202 after school most any day, unless there’s a meeting. (Meetings are usually on Wednesday.) Just check with me to be sure I’ll be in. Do come--I enjoy visitors. If you are looking for me during the school day, I might be in the math office (Room 221). If you can’t find me, send an email and say where you are.
Please feel free also to send me an email with any questions you might have. Sometimes you forget to ask something during class, so this is a good way to follow up.
When you turn in an assignment to me, you are saying "This is my work." Please be sure that it is in fact your work. For this course, you do not need to do outside research. What you write should come from your head. The whole purpose of the course is for you to develop your reasoning powers, your ability to draw conclusions from evidence you have seen. Copying and pasting somebody else’s conclusions really doesn’t meet that purpose.
I do check for plagiarism. I will tell you that right up front. I’m pretty good at it, too. I check everybody. I don’t try to make judgments about who might or might not do that. From my experience, it turns out that lots of nice people end up making that mistake.
It surprises me, actually, how many times I have caught someone plagiarizing in this course. I would think that seniors would be familiar with acceptable use of sources. And yet, it happens every year I teach this course. I gotta tell you, I hate it when it happens. The first thing I do when I find it is to yell a loud "No!" across my living room. Then I have to call parents and tell them something disappointing about their child. Then I have to give a bad grade. That never feels good. Can you spare me that? Let’s make this the year that nobody plagiarizes.
I prefer that you not bring food to class. If you really, really can’t wait until lunch time to eat, then please bring something neat to eat. Baby carrots are good. Cheese sticks are fine. I don’t want to see liquids (other than water), crumbly things, sticky things, and so forth. Think of the item being stepped on by a shoe. Would you be able to pick it up afterwards and put it in the trash? If not, don’t bring it to class, please.
And finally, you should not bring nuts to class in any form at any time. There are some students in school with severe nut allergies and we want all of the classrooms to be safe for those students.