Math 162 B
Calculus II
Spring 2002

Guidelines for Working Together with Academic Integrity

It is not good that students should be alone

• If you view math as a set of skills to learn, then you are embarking on a very difficult venture indeed when you set down to learn in a detached way the myriad of skills that go with a specific course. As it happens, these skills are generally based upon a relatively small collection of ideas/concepts that, if mastered, make the skills much easier to apprehend. You will find it easier to master these fundamental ideas if you work at learning the vocabulary — using the mathematical terms specific to the course with classmates. You should talk about the concepts, identifying carefully what they are and what they are not. (For instance, a function is not the same thing as a graph.) No section is likely to emphasize more than two concepts, and often these are repeats (concepts that have appeared earlier).
• If you spend time in demonstrations to others in your group of your solutions to various problems, you will find frequently that another has solved a problem substantially differently than you. Real learning begins when you grapple together over why different methods lead to the same or different answers.
• You may find that another group member can solve a problem you've tried but has left you stymied.
• Even if you tend to get all of the problems, there is value in explaining things to others. Every teacher you know will tell you that they thought they knew a subject well before teaching it, but gained new insights/understanding as they taught it.
• Studying together provides opportunity for Christian interaction. We can encourage one another, bear one another's burdens/frustrations, and share our gifts (and griefs) with others.
• One day you will seek employment. Companies are looking for people who, while individually competent, have good teamwork experiences and skills. Now is the time to develop those skills.

In the final analysis, each student is responsible for his or her own education

Work that is turned in for a grade (except work explicitly designated as group work) should be written up independently. If you do this in proximity of study partners resist the temptation to "copy" or to lean too heavily on someone else (neither of which is not allowed), mistakenly thinking that you would have been able to do the work on your own. You may borrow someone's idea for solving a problem, but the words must be yours. All assignments (except for projects specifically assigned in groups) are to be written up separately on your own.

Handing in another's writeup (even on homework) will be considered as academic dishonesty.

Give as much attention to presenting your solutions in a coherent manner (using mathematical symbols as part of your sentence structure) as you give to actually solving the problem, since

• Writing up a solution is an important step in learning the material well.
• Written work is the main source of your grade, and practice makes perfect. Concientious work on daily assignments will lead to quality work on tests.

Choose Wisely

• Fun. Pick some people with whom you enjoy studying. There is no reason that studying can't be fun. (But don't choose someone with whom you have too much fun INSTEAD of studying.)

• Balanced. Do not work in a group that is too unbalanced. Certainly there are times when one person in a group has the key insight that solves a problem, and it is also true that different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Bbut if the same person is always having all the insights, or if you are never contributing to the group effort, then you should probably seek out a different group.

  Balance also extends to preparation. Do not get answers or hints from someone who has completed the work before you have even begun. Ideally, each member of the group should come with roughly the same amount of background work done.

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