Class Report: Advanced Calc II

I wasn't going to blog about this class, but I actually had a reader request, if you can believe that.

At any rate, we are in a new classroom this semester, but otherwise the course is much the same as Advanced Calc I - same professor, a subset of the students from last semester, and a very similar syllabus. There are two new students, including Ed.

The one thing the prof changed on the syllabus is how he handles late work. Last semester he gave a 5% bonus to homework turned in on time, and hypothetically took 5% off for every day it was late (so you'd get full credit for turning it in one day late). But I don't think he ever actually gave a penalty, and he would accept things up to a week or two late, which resulted, naturally, in some people getting pretty far behind on homework. This semester the on-time bonus is only 2%, and he will not take homework more than 2 days late except by prior arrangement. In practice, I suspect this means he'll take late work anyway (which he seems to suspect as well). I only turned in one assignment late last semester (and it was only one day late, I think), so I don't think this policy change will affect me.

I enjoy the style of this class a lot. It's a straight-up lecture that is very well organized, and the professor has excellent handwriting and a great presentation style. Partly because this course is taken mainly by math majors who are not secondary math ed folks, it seems to be a sharper crowd than I've seen in some of my other courses.

We get weekly homework that consists of six problems to turn in and several more problems that we don't turn in. I did the "several more problems" on the first couple of homeworks last semester, and then stopped doing them. I typically find it hard enough to finish the six mandatory problems every week; the other time I put into the class is more profitably spent reviewing definitions and proofs.

So that's Advanced Calc II.