Homework

Handouts

Lectures

Homework due on Tuesday, instead.



Dear Math254er,

The homework that was to be due on Thursday (Homework Set 9) is now
due on Tuesday, March 9, 2010. There will be another (shorter)
problem set due on Thursday, March 11.

sorry,
~jim

Student Evaluation of Instruction



Dear Math254er,

Please evaluate my teaching by completing an online Student Evaluation
of Instruction (SEI) form. I really appreciate your help with this:
it will help me to improve my future courses, and your evaluations
will be very important when I apply for my next job.

Here is how to access the Student Evaluation of Instruction form.

* Go to http://www.buckeyelink.osu.edu/.
* Click on My Student Center.
* Then click on My Class Schedule.
* Locate Math 254, and click on the Evaluation button in that row.

Your comments are anonymous (I do not have access to the forms).
There is space for open-ended comments, too, and I very much
appreciate your comments on what you found helpful and not so helpful
this quarter (i.e., with regards to "technology").

You can find more information on SEIs by visiting www.sei.osu.edu.
The online SEI forms are available until the last day of classes,
Friday, March 12. The deadline cannot be extended, so please make
sure you respond soon.

thank you very much for taking the time to do this,
~jim

Office hours for Thursday and Friday



Dear Math254er,

I will be in my office (MW658) today (Thursday) from 5:30pm until
6:30pm, and tomorrow (Friday) morning from 10:30am until 12:15pm.

thanks,
~jim

Lecture 17, online.



Dear Math254er,

Many people were not able to make it to campus today, so I posted a
video of today's lecture at

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/lecture17/

Let me know what you think of this technology.

thanks,
~jim

Office hours tonight, 5pm - 7pm.



Dear Math254er,

I will be in my office tonight (Wednesday, February 10, 2010) from 5pm
until 7pm. Come by if you want to talk about anything or go over
problems.

I hope things are making sense so far; the upcoming material is going
to be more challenging.

thank you,
~jim

Survey.



Dear Math254er,

I'll be in my office MW658 tonight (Monday, February 8) from 5pm until
7pm. Definitely come by if you want to do some math together.

Additionally, if you have time, I'd appreciate comments about the
course:

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/survey.html

I am interested in improving things for the rest of the quarter, so if
there are things that can be better, please let me know (either
anonymously or nonymously). It's hard for me to know, without your
feedback, how to make the course as great as possible.

If you missed the balancing semicircle today, you can watch a movie at

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/balancing.mov

Finally, my apologies about the propane today; I have contacted the
math department and I'll let you know.

thank you,
~jim

Office hours today and tomorrow.



Dear Math254er,

I will be in my office tonight (Tuesday, February 2) from 4:30pm until
5:30pm, and then again tomorrow (Wednesday, February 3) from 5:00pm
until 7:00pm. Definitely come by if you want to go over Midterm 1
problems or any other material.

Additionally, I will post a solution set to Midterm 1.

thank you,
~jim

Office hours, rescheduled.



Dear Math254er,

Tonight (Tuesday) I'll be in my office from 4:355pm until 5:30pm, so
definitely come by if you have anything you want to go over.

I will also be in my office tomorrow (Wednesday) from 11:00am until
12:20pm, but that will be the last time I'm in my office before the
midterm.

I'll be leaving town on Wednesday, so I'll have another faculty member
proctor the midterm on Friday. Even if I'm out of town, I'm still
available to answer any questions over email, of course.

sorry,
~jim

Office hours tonight 4pm - 6pm



Dear Math254er,

I will be in my office tonight (Monday, January 25) from 4pm until
6pm. Please feel free to come by if you want to talk.

A review sheet is available at

http://www.math.osu.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/review1.pdf

Be sure to study the definitions: you must be prepared to give
definitions of the concepts you are applying on the midterm.

thank you,
~jim

Office hours, survey and tonight 6pm-7pm



Dear Math254er,

I will be in my office tonight (Thursday, January 21) from 6pm until
7pm. Please come by if you want to talk about anything.

Additionally, here is a survey about office hours:

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/survey.html

I am interested in knowing what times would be terrible and what times
would be great to hold office hours.

thank you,
~jim

No lecture on Monday.



Dear Math254er,

I just wanted to remind you that there won't be a lecture or office
hours tomorrow (Monday, January 18).

There will be a quiz Tuesday in recitation (covering material through
section 14.6).

see you for lecture on Wednesday,
~jim

Office hours rescheduled for radical pi talk



Dear Math254er,

Tomorrow's (Wednesday, January 13) office hours have been rescheduled;
I will be in my office MW658 from 3:30pm until 5:00pm. I apologize
for the late notice.

Then, at 5pm, instead of office hours, I will be giving a talk at
Radical Pi, the undergraduate math club.

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/undergraduate/radicalpi

The question is whether a square can be divided into an odd number of
triangles having the same area (try doing it!); this question was
fully answered in 1970 by Paul Monsky, and I will be presenting his
solution.

thanks,
~jim

Course website and RSS feeds



Dear Math254er,

You can download all the course materials from

http://www.math.osu.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/

The same material will appear on Carmen, but with a delay of about an
hour. If you use an RSS feed reader, you might want to subscribe to
some of the course RSS feeds:

http://www.math.osu.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/homework-index.xml

http://www.math.osu.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/handout-index.xml

The first homework set is posted at

http://www.math.osu.edu/~fowler/teaching/math254/homework01.pdf

Let me know if you have any trouble downloading the course material.

~jim

Welcome to Math 254.



Dear Math254er,

I just wanted to welcome you to my section of Math 254. Some people
have emailed me, asking how to prepare.

Math 254 is a course in multivariable calculus, so you should make
sure that you have a strong grasp of single variable calculus. Some
tough spots that you might want to review in this first week include

* tangent lines
* the chain rule
* maximization and minimization problems
* integration techniques (especially u-substitution)
* coordinate systems (polar, cylindrical, spherical)

There will be a lot of differentiation in the first month, and a lot
of integration in the second month, so make sure that you have plenty
of practice taking derivatives and taking integrals.

let me know if you have other questions,
~jim