To Math 1010 Instructors
January 2012

Thank you for teaching Math 1010.  As you may know, every general education class, which includes Math 1010, will be assigning a signature assignment for students to include in their e-Portfolios.  Each of your students will post at least one class project into their personal e-Portfolio.  This may be completed individually or as a group, but each student will need to post a project and write their own reflections at the end.  

You are not responsible for teaching students to set-up or use their e-Portfolio.  The projects are available on the math departmental web page (the URL is given on the syllabus).  Direct them to the information in the departmental syllabus for more information.  You do need to verify that the assignment has been placed into the e-Portfolio.  It is recommended that you make this a requirement necessary for them to receive a grade for the project.  Also, if there is a particular project that as an instructor you do not “enjoy,” then assign only the specific projects that you intend for students to complete.

An important change:  The final exam is no longer all multiple choices.  Henceforth, the final exam must be at least 50% show your work.  For spring semester 2012, the final exam will have 10 mandatory multiple choice questions, 10 mandatory show your work questions, and “10 choose 5” show your work questions (the same format as the college algebra final exam).  Make sure to let students know the format change and the new time (3:40 pm – 5:40 pm).  Past M1010 final exam questions will still serve as good representative practice questions; students should focus on working past final exam problems as if they are all show your work.

As always, note the departmental calculator restrictions, the grading policies, and the rest of the mandatory final exam information in the departmental syllabus.  In particular, note that all material in the calendar/schedule should be covered; however, the order of covered sections can be permuted as seen fit by individual instructors.  

Observe that the provided schedules are tentative and typically may require some personal adjustment throughout the semester.  The files are in easily editable formats, e.g., rtf and xls, so feel free to make any necessary fixes, changes, and/or minor adjustments.  Also, feel free to acknowledge any errors encountered, say via email (the materials will be ameliorated as such). 

For those of you using MyMathLab (MML):  To create and adapt your own MML course, copy the course ID slcc97351 (hopefully this is still active).  This version should contain all the features of MML but does not include any due dates, etc; you must set your course up yourself.

Again, thank you for teaching Intermediate Algebra and have a good semester.