Prof. Wladis

cwladis@bmcc.cuny.edu

alternate email: cwladis@nyc.rr.com (please use this email only if the bmcc email is not working)

212-220-1363

Office: N539 (inside the math department, which is room N520)

Office hours: Monday 1-4pm

Math department fax: 212-748-7459 (be sure to put my name on it if you want it to go to me)

My box can be found in the math department in room N520

 

General Course Syllabus for Math 104 DL

 

Read this ENTIRE document carefully! It explains all of the details of how the course works and how you are graded. I strongly recommend that you print this out and keep it with you as a reference throughout the course.

If you have already read the syllabus and are just looking for an answer to a specific question, you can click on the links below to take you directly to that section.

Required Textbook
What you must do to pass this course
How to submit your work
Assignments and Grading
Policy on late work
What to do if you are having technical trouble
What to do if you need help with the math
Where to find things on our course webpage

Required Textbook:

Dimensional Analysis for Meds , Third Edition for BMCC, by Anna M. Curren, Delmar Thompson Learning, 2002.

This is a NEW edition; it is different from the book used at BMCC last semester.

To see a few places where you can buy the book, click here.

 

What you must do to pass this course:

  1. Login to the course webpage at least twice a week whenever class is in session, and read the Announcements. Then look at the Assignments page for the week to see what work has been assigned for that week.
  2. Check your BMCC email (or the email address you have set your BMCC email to forward to) 2-3 times per week while class is in session.
  3. Turn in all work by the deadlines posted each week on the course webpage under the Assignments menu.
  4. If you have a valid reason for turning work in late (i.e. death in the family, sickness, etc.), let me know ASAP and be prepared to provide written justification.
  5. Start your work several days BEFORE the deadline. If you wait until the night before work is due to begin and then cannot complete it on time because you have technical difficulties, your work will lose points for being late!

 

How to submit work:

  1. Put it in the digital drop box: This can be found on the main menu for this course in Blackboard. You can type up or scan in your work and submit it here. Be sure to hit the submit button when you are through so that your work actually gets submitted to me! If you forget this step, I will not be able to see it!

    If you need help writing symbols, see the help page under "Technical Help" on the main course menu.

  2. Email it to me: You can type your work into the body of an email, or if you prefer, you can type it in Microsoft word or scan it in as an image file and send it to me that way.

    If you need help writing symbols, see the help page under "Technical Help" on the main course menu.

  3. Fax it to me: You can fax it to the math department at 212-748-7459, but you must be sure to put my name on it, or I may not get it! (The math department has well over 100 faculty, so without my name, the secretaries won't know what to do with it!)
  4. Put it in my mailbox: My mailbox is in the math department, room N520. My box has my name underneath it. The secretaries leave and lock the department at 5pm on weekdays, but if you are willing to wait a little at the door until someone comes by, you can usually get a professor to let you in after hours to put something in my box.

Assignments and Grades:

This class has several kinds of assignments:

The discussion questions will be posted under the Discussion Board button on the main course menu.

You must always post your first response to the discussion board 3 days before the deadline for the assignments each week; if you miss this deadline, you will lost points on your discussion board grade because other students won't have enough time to respond to your post! This deadline is always listed on the Assignments page, under the Discussion Board description.

You can see which discussion questions have been assigned for the week by looking at the Assignments page for that week.

What is required to get full credit:

If I respond to your post and ask you to fix or clarify something you’ve said, you must respond to my post.

If other students give you feedback on how to fix your answer or explain why they think that your answer has an error, then you must respond to them by either correcting the error and reposting your answer, or if you think they are mistaken and that your answer does not have the error they have described, then explain clearly to them why the error they have pointed out is, in fact, correct.

Your replies to other students’ posts should say something substantive! It is fine to reply to another student, “Your answer really helped me to understand the concept better!”, but this post does not contain any information about the math itself, and therefore will not count as one of your two required responses.

Each chapter has its own homework problems taken from the book, which you can find by looking at the Assignments page for that week.

Please do not send me attachments via email or documents in the digital drop box if you have recently had or suspect you might have a computer virus. Instead, copy your work into the BODY of an email and send it to me that way.

At the end of the class, we will have a final exam. It will be cumulative. It will be very similar in structure and difficulty to the chapter tests. If you have studied and done well on all the previous tests, you will probably do well on the final. When it is time to take the final, you will see it on that week's Assignments page. Like the tests, you will have about a week to log in to take the final. The final will also be timed and be open book/notes.

 

Policy on Late Work:

 

What Excuses will be considered Valid enough to Get an Extension for Classwork?

Here is what you must do if you want to request an extension due to technical problems:

What to do if you are having technical trouble:

  1. On the course webpage, go to “Technical Help” on the main course menu. Read what it written here FIRST! Read it carefully! Most the problems you are likely to encounter are already listed here! This is the place to go if you are having trouble writing equations, or reading them, or are having any other technical issues with the course webpage.

  2. If that doesn’t work, contact Information Technology (IT) for problems with the course webpage, Blackboard or the portal at (212) 220-8122 or at it@bmcc.cuny.edu. If you are having BMCC email trouble, contact the Help Desk at BMCC at 212-220-8379 or at helpdesk@bmcc.cuny.edu.
  3. Each time you contact IT (or the Help Desk), write down the DATE and TIME you contacted them, and write down the NAME of the person you talked to.

    Keep calling or emailing IT (or the Help Desk) until you get through to someone who is able to solve your problem. You may need to ask to be transferred to the right person.

    Keep calling back until you get the problem fixed.

  4. If it takes more than a day or two to fix your technical problem, then email me at cwladis@bmcc.cuny.edu and tell me:

    1. What the problem is:

      1. Describe to me step-by-step exactly what the problem is and what happens when you run into it. (For example, don’t just tell me that you “can’t do the lecture questions.” Instead, do tell me specifically what is wrong, like this: “When I go to the Assignments page for this week and click on the link to the lecture questions, I get an error message that says, ‘The page cannot be displayed.’”

      2. Do you have the same problem on several different computers, or just one?

    2. Approximately what day and time the problem started.

    3. Who you have contacted at IT (or the Help Desk) and when you have contacted them.
    4. Do not contact me with technical problems until you have already contacted IT (or the help desk)! I cannot fix any technical problems; I am not a computer technician and will not be able to help you with computer issues because I do not have the knowledge or the website access needed to fix most technical issues. Only IT (or the helpdesk) can fix computer problems. The only reason you should contact me about your technical issues is so that:

      • I am aware that you are having a problem, and
      • If several students are having the same problem, I can notify other technical people at the college of the problem so that it might be fixed more quickly.

 

What to do if you need help with the math:

Where to find things on our course webpage:

The main menu for the course is the purple menu on the left of the course webpage. It has the following menu titles: