Hello everyone,

Before the final exam you need to fill out this short survey:

• Final Exam sign-up form

This will help me make sure that everyone understands the terms of the exam, even those that have only been participating in class asynchronously in recent weeks. Please fill it out now, because otherwise I’ll have to track you down and email you to remind you later!

Speaking of which, I know that many of you have not yet completed the course evaluations and surveys. There are three that you need to fill out. Please do so as soon as possible so I can stop sending you reminder emails. Here are direct links:

• Official JMU course evaluation (find link in MyMadison or your email)
• Survey of Ideas for online teaching
• Short online learning experiences survey

See you all in the Zoom call for the Final Exam at 9am on Wednesday, May 6! I’ll put the link on the front page of Canvas that morning.

Dr. Taalman

Last week!

This week you have a review assignment for Chapter 7 that will help prepare you for the Final Exam. Note you will take the Final Exam SYNCHRONOUSLY, all at the same scheduled time, at 9am on Wednesday, May 6. At that time you will call in to Zoom to have a quick chat with me and obtain a code that you can use to take the Final Exam in as a Canvas quiz.

Check out the link in the right sidebar for the rest of the details 🙂

Last week of new material! Check out the sidebar for this week’s excursion.

Important time change for this week: Our Monday meeting is still at 10:10am, but our Thursday meeting will be at 6-8pm this week due to a scheduling conflict.

Check out the link in the right sidebar to see our plan for Week 4.

One more week of material after this one, then a week of review, and then the final. We are almost there 🙂

New week, same drill. See the weekly to-do list for Week 3 in the right sidebar. This week we have a slightly different organization to encourage you to get started on the WebAssign early!

A step-by-step guide to the second online week of MATH 232 is in the right sidebar. We’ll go through it together in the Zoom call at 10:10am on Monday; see our class Canvas page for a link to join the meeting (or watch the recording later).

Here’s a summary of the updates that have occurred so far this week:

• There are two new videos listed on the New Week 1 Resources page, addressing questions you have asked throughout the week.
• If you’re having trouble getting into WebAssign this week, try using a different browser; apparently Chrome is now blocking some cookies (thanks Riley for that tip!). If that doesn’t work then you need to call their support number: 1-800-354-9706. Please note that WebAssign very kindly made their resources free for *every* student at *all* schools that switched to online learning, so they are experiencing high load and some weird account issues. When you call them please also remember to give a huge thanks 🙂
• This Friday’s drop-in session time was changed to 5-7pm.
• The Grades policy has been updated to reflect our new assignment/quiz structure, and the new JMU policies on taking courses as credit/no-credit.

Other things to remember:

• Feel free to stop by for the drop-in video call from 5-7pm tonight/Friday (see your JMU email or Canvas for the link). I’ll record the session and post any relevant bits of the video to Canvas later in the evening.
• The Section 7.1 WebAssign and both Canvas Mastery Quiz attempts for Section 7.1 are due on Sunday at 11:59pm.
• Please remember to fill out the Week 1 Survey as soon as you finish your homework and quizzes for this week, so I can think about what might need changing for Week 2! 🙂

A step-by-step guide to the first online week of MATH 232 is in the right sidebar. We’ll go through it together in the Zoom call at 10:10am on Monday; see our class Canvas page for a link to join the meeting (or watch the recording later).

Goals as we move forward

• Learn some calculus
  • Enough to complete the course and future prerequisites
• Keep it simple
  • Try to keep things the same when possible, change when not possible
  • Be extremely clear about expectations
  • Try not to add to stress, be fair to all students
• Accessibility and flexibility
  • Be mindful of all students’ needs and challenges
  • Asynchronous material: communication, living documents, recordings
  • Continuous support: chat, questions, multiple instructional resources
• Grades? Retakes of past quizzes? Final Exam?
  • Stay tuned. Let’s just get rolling first.

One week at a time

Here’s my plan for how each week will go from now on (will revise later as needed):

• Weekly kickoff meeting
  • Monday 10:10 am on Zoom (attend if you can, or watch recording later)
• Instructional material
  • Content, eBook, videos, and examples listed on one Weekly Page here on the class website (will link from this timeline feed to each weekly page)
  • Additional videos, content, and/or solutions will be added to the Weekly Page as needed according to student questions throughout the week
• Getting help throughout the week
  • Canvas Chat: We will try using this and see how it goes. I think Notifications are just beeps if your window is open, not emails to let you know that new messages are there. I will check the chat periodically to see what is there, but response time may be slow.
  • Canvas Discussion: We will continue using this, even though it’s pretty bad. I think Chat is better if we can get it to work efficiently.
  • The JMU SMLC will be open remotely! Details to follow soon.
  • Personal issues or need more help? Just email Dr. Taalman 🙂
• Weekly roundup meeting
  • Friday 4:00-6:00 pm on Zoom (drop in as needed or watch recording later)
• Assignments
  • WebAssign homework as usual
  • “Paper problems” only as absolutely necessary and not collected
• Mastery Quizzes
  • These will now be handled as online quizzes on Canvas; take the Mastery Quiz for the current week on your own time when you are ready
  • On your honor: No technology or assistance from people or internet
  • One question at a time, can see responses only immediately afterwards
  • From now on you get only one retake for each quiz; use the same link to take the quiz a second time. I strongly suggest waiting at least 24 hours and reviewing the material and homework assignments before taking the quiz again. As always, the quizzes are randomized and based on the homework problems.
• Everything from the week will be due on Sunday night 11:59 pm

That’s it, each week, rinse and repeat… and wash your hands 🙂

The first week of material and video call links will be posted on this website on Sunday night. Stay safe everyone and see you on Monday morning at 10:10 for our first meeting.

• Webassign Warmup questions due at start of class
• Hand in Paper Problems at start of class
• Take Chapter 6 Test (Mastery Quizzes for 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4)
• The test questions came from the following Homework problems:
  • Section 6.1: Paper Problems #60, #70, #77
  • Section 6.2: Paper Problems #1, #5-8, #53
  • Section 6.3: Webassign Warmups #38, #70, Paper Problems #13
  • Section 6.4: Paper Problems #1, #26, #56