CS3120 - Discrete Mathematics and Theory 2 Course Logistics

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Syllabus | Lectures | Textbook |Quizzes | Homeworks and Grading Policy | Final Exam | Final Letter Grades |

Syllabus

The syllabus for the course can be found here. Most (but not all) of that information is summarized here.

Lectures

Lectures will be held in-person in the classroom listed on the University Registrar. Attendace is not required but poor attendance will affect the class curve at the end of the semester (if a curve is applicable). Instructors will keep track of the percentage of days in which more than half the students are present in lecture. If this percentage is low, then the class curve will be affected. We are aiming for greater than 80 percent good attendance!

Textbook

You will really need to read and study material other than the slides. There are many choices where you can get more details about our topics, but a textbook is the easiest option.

We’ll post readings from the following textbook, and we urge you to read them or get that info from another source.

Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser, 2nd edition.

Modules

The course is divided into 4 modules (plus an introductory module), each which lasts for about 2-5 lectures each. The 4 modules are listed below:

• Module 0: Introduction, Cardinality, Review
• Module 1: Regular Languages
• Module 2: Context-Free Grammars
• Module 3: Turing Machines and Decidability
• Module 4: Complexity Theory

Quizzes (Exams)

Each module 1-4 has one quiz associated with it, and you will take one quiz per quiz period with a 50 minute time limit. Each individual quiz will be written to take about 40 minutes. In addition, there is a final exam quiz that contains material from the entire semester (summative) that will be taken during the final exam (nore detail in final exam section below).

All quizzes will be taken at the University’s new Computer-Based Testing Facility in Gilmer Hall. In general, quizzes will be open for a three day period. Students are required to log onto the Prairie Test online system to secure a reservation for a time to take their exam. At the reservation time, students arrive at Gilmer Hall and take their quiz on the provided computers.

The weeks for which quizzes will be taken are (marked on the class schedule page at the bottom of the slides page)[../slides/index.html]. Please note that these dates are subject to change as we arrange for times with the CBTF for holding the quizzes.

The final exam quiz will be scheduled mid-semester and those dates will be published ahead of the final exam period. The CBTF does not allow us to schedule our final exam before the semester begins.

These dates are subject to change. Each quiz will be graded separately, and thus you will earn a different grade for each individual quiz. Some quizzes can be retaken to improve your grade while some quizzes can only be taken once due to time constraints.

Final Exam

THE INFORMATION BELOW IS THE PLAN FOR THE FINAL EXAM. HOWEVER, THESE PLANS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON CONSTRAINTS INVOLVING THE CBTF TESTING CENTER

The final exam will also be held at the Computer-Based Testing Facility (CBTF) in Gilmer Hall. This reservation will be for a two hour period instead of just one hour. Thus, the quiz will be longer than usual. During this two hour period, students will take a long quiz that contains the following:

• Final Exam Quiz: One section of the Summative final exam quiz that will ask you to questions across the four modules. This quiz will ask you to draw on knowledge from multiple modules and will serve as a single “final quiz” grade.
• Retake Modules 1-4: A second version of quizzes 1-4 will be made available during the final exam. Your highest score (first attempt or this second attempt) will be taken regardless. You should prioritize these quizzes depending on which ones you scored lowest on during the initial attempt.

This may seem daunting, but most students are not expected to take all five quizzes during the 2-hour period. Everyone will take the final exam quiz, and most students will take 1 or 2 of the retake quizzes. Here is an expected time breakdown during the final exam:

• Final Exam quiz: Required (40 minutes)
• Modules 1-4 retake quizzes (take up to 2): 2 Optional Quizzes (30 minutes each, up to 60 minutes)

This amounts to 40+30+30 = 100 minutes = 1 hour and 40 minutes with 20 minutes of buffer time. If you WANT to try to take all four retake quizzes, you are welcome to try to within the 2-hour period but it is NOT expected to be feasible or easy to do so.

Homeworks

There are one or two homework assignments per module (depending on the module), that must be completed. These will be graded on completion and effort due to the VAST number of AI Generated answers that have been submitted in recent semesters. You will earn a small amount of credit for completing and submitting these assignments

Late Policy: Homeworks have firm deadlines, but extensions can be requested via an online form (which will be provided to students at a later date). By filling out this form, you can request up to 5 days of time to work on the assignment. In general, these will always be granted for any reason. There will be No extensions for any reason beyond the 5 day extension. If you need additional time on homeworks, you should consider appealing for a grade of Incomplete at the end of the semester (contact the instructor for details).

Homework OH Check-Ins

All students are required to complete one homework check-in at some point during the course. Due to the course size, we only have time to have every do one of these. The course staff will notify you of a single week during the semester in which you’ve been scheduled to do your homework check-in. During your scheduled week, you are required to attend any TAs Office Hours and have a (maximum) 10 minute meeting with the TA. The TA will do the following:

• The TA will pull up the most recent homework assignment (you will be told ahead of time which homework this will be regarding), and will choose any question from that assignment randomly.
• The TA will ask you to explain the answer you submitted for the randomly chosen question. You will then explain your answer to the TA in as much detail as you are able.
• The TA will grade your answer on a 4 point scale (see below).

The TA’s will grade your responses during these check-ins one the scale below:

• 4 (100 percent): Great! Student described the correct answer to the homework problem and did so without making any mistakes that were noticed by the proctor.
• 3 (75 percent): Student is clearly coming to class and engaging with the course material. Student uses the correct vocabulary and speaks intelligently about the material. However, student still makes mistakes in their answer and/or shows a lack of understanding meaning they have yet to fully master the material.
• 2 (50 percent): Student seems to not be coming to class and/or engaging with the material. They use some of the correct vocabulary when speaking about course topics but do not use those terms correctly, often mixing up definitions or making up components to definitions that were not described in class. Student does not seem to have a basic understanding of the solution to the homework problem and why it works correctly.
• 1 (0 percent): Student did not submit the homework assignment OR seems to have no idea how to answer the question from the homework assignment. Student seems to have little to no understanding of the course topics.

Attendance

All students are expected to attend lecture in-person. This is an IN-PERSON class and you are responsible for keeping up with announcements or messages in lecture if you miss class.

There will be an attendance grade for this class, but given how large the class is it is not feasible to take individual attendance. At the beginning of every lecture, I will count the number of students who are attending. If MORE than 50 percent of the class is present then EVERYBODY receives their attendance point for that day. If 50 percent or less is present, then EVERYBODY loses their attendance point for that day.

Everyone will receive the same attendance score which will simply be the percentage of lectures in which the section has earned their attendance point. If there are multiple sections, then each section receives attendance scores individually.

Grades

Your letter grade will be calculated using a traditional weighted average. The weights are:

• Homework: 15 percent (about 6 homeworks)
• OH Check-In (1): 5 percent
• Attendance: 8 percent
• Quizzes (modules 1-4): 60 percent (15 percent each)
• Final Cumulative Quiz: 12 percent

Homeworks and quizzes will be graded on a traditional percentage scale. Your final letter grade will be determined by the traditional decade curve. The table for which is shown below: