305-02 Syllabus, Spring 2006

Instructor: Terry Lawson

Office: Gibson 319

Office Hours: MWF 11-12 and by appointment. Please see me whenever you have questions. The easiest time to arrange an appointment is either before or after class.

TA: Johnny Feng, Gibson 416-I

Text:  I am currently writing a book for this course, which we will use. Since the Copy Center is not functioning, I will arrange for copies to be made through the Math Department and will make it available to you at the cost of getting it copied. I will distribute it in pieces, in order to minimize the cost for anyone who decides to drop the course. I am handing out the first chapter at the beginning of class to get us started. The bookstore has the book William Trench, Introduction to Real Analysis. This is not required for the course, but you may find it useful as a reference -- if so, what I suggest is that a few people get together to buy a copy to be shared. The material covered this semester will come from Chapters 1--5 of my book and corresponds to the material in Calculus 121-122 or 131. It is treated at a more advanced level here, with more emphasis on understanding the basic analytical concepts and less on routine computation. There will be strong emphasis on understanding proofs and learning how to construct proofs.

Organization and grading: We will meet 3 times a week on MWF 12-12:50. In addition, the class will be broken into small groups to meet with me and Johnny Feng on a regular schedule. These meetings will replace the lab time on Thursday, although some of the meetings will be scheduled at that time. The emphasis on these small group meetings will be to discuss assigned problems. This will include a substantial amount of time in developing your abilities to do proofs. For each MWF class there will be assigned reading. During class we will discuss the major features of the reading. I will not go through every aspect of a reading assignment, but you will responsible for the material in the assignment. You should ask questions in class if there are aspects of the assignment that we are not treating which you do not understand. We will also discuss some of the problems in the text as time permits.   When we meet in small groups, we will discuss assigned discussion problems that we haven't had time for during the MWF meetings. Students will be asked to present solutions of the Solved Problems and selected additional problems from those labeled with a G in the assignment in the small group meetings, as well as raise questions about problems that cause difficulties.  These discussion problems are NOT to be written up and handed in. You should be attempting these problems in conjunction with reading the material in the book corresponding to where we are in class. You are encouraged to work on these problems with other students. Your participation in the class discussion and small group meetings will count for 15% of your grade. There will be regularly assigned homework which is to be written up. The written assignments will be due on Mondays at roughly two week intervals. You should work on these problems as we have covered the relevant material. We will also discuss questions on these problems during the small group meetings, and I will allot some class time on each Friday before the written problems are due to discuss them and answer questions. This written homework constitutes the single most important component of the grade in the course, counting 30%. In contrast to the discussion problems, where group work is encouraged, you are supposed to work the written problems on your own. In addition to the written homework and discussion problems, there will be two tests and a final exam. The final exam will be comprehensive over the material in the course. Each test counts 15% and the final counts 25% of the course grade. There will be a course web page on the Blackboard system on campus. It is accessed at blackboard.tulane.edu. I will post information such as assignments, homework solutions, practice tests, and test solutions on the site. To get started, I will list the first few assignments. I will update this list in class and post future assignments on the web page. The letter G denotes that these problems will be used for class discussion and the small group meetings.  The letter W denotes that these problems will be part of the written assignment. I will typically tell you on the Wednesday before a Monday due date exactly which written problems are due on Monday. They will basically be the problems since the last assignment corresponding to material that we will have discussed by the group sessions on Thursdays. It is most useful to look at them at the time we are covering the relevant material and not leave everything to be done just before they are due.

Chapter 1 Assignments

1: G A1.1,A1.2, B1.1,B1.3,C1.1 ;W A1.3,A1.4 ,B1.4,C1.4
2: G A2.2, A2.4, B2.1,B2.5, C2.2 ;W A2.3, B2.4, C2.1
3: G A3.1, A3.2, B3.1, B3.4, C3.1,C3.4;W A3.2, B3.2, C3.2