Prof. Wladis

Phone: (212) 220-1363 (email is always the fastest way to reach me)

Office: N598E

Office hours:
(fall 2023) Tues 9am-12pm
These are virtual office hours. Text or call me on my office phone (212-220-1363) during this time.

General Course Syllabus for Math 104 DL

Read this ENTIRE document carefully! It explains all of the details of how the course works and how you are graded. I strongly recommend that you reread this regularly or print this out and keep it with you as a reference throughout the course.

If you have already read the syllabus and are just looking for an answer to a specific question, you can click on the links below to take you directly to that section.

Required Textbook
What you must do to pass this course
How to Tell When Work is Due
Assignments and Grading
How to submit your work
Policy on late work
Attendance Policy
Students with Disabilities
Policy on Plagarism and Academic Integrity
What to do if you are having technical trouble
What to do if you need help with the math
Where to find things on our course webpage
Student Learning Outcomes
Information about the Writing Intensive nature of this course

Course Description:

This course covers computations and measurements essential in the health science professional fields with an emphasis on nursing.  Topics include units and systems of measurement, oral and parenteral dosage calculations, reconstitution of powdered medications, adult and pediatric dosage calculations based on body weight, and intravenous and critical care dosage calculations. This course does not fulfil the liberal arts mathematics requirement (although it does count as a liberal arts elective course).

Prerequisites:

MAT 051, if needed.

Required Textbook:

To find the book, click here.

What you must do to pass this course:

1. Login to the course webpage at least twice a week whenever class is in session, and read the Announcements. Then look at the Assignments page for the week to see what work has been assigned for that week.
2. Check your BMCC email (or the email address you have signed up to the class mailing list) 2-3 times per week while class is in session.
3. Turn in all work by the deadlines posted each week on the course webpage under the Assignments menu.
4. If you have a valid reason for turning work in late (i.e. death in the family, sickness, etc.), let me know ASAP and be prepared to provide written justification.
5. Start your work several days BEFORE the deadline. If you wait until the night before work is due to begin and then cannot complete it on time because you have technical difficulties, your work will lose points for being late!

How to Tell When Work is Due:

Look at the Assignments page in the main course webpage: The Due Date column, which is the far left column gives the final due date for all the assignments that are listed in each row of the Assignments table. Because the first post to the discussion board is due about 3 days before all the other work, the deadline for the first post to the discussion board is listed in the Discussion Board column, to the far right of the assignments page. In this column it will clearly say, "First Discussion post due 11:59 pm" and then give the date it is due. This will generally be 3 days before the final deadline for all work for the week.

Remember that Discussion Board postings and Tests cannot be taken late, so you must be sure to complete these by the deadline listed on the assignments page. Lecture questions and homework may be submitted late, but you will lose points for their lateness (to see policies on late work, click here.)

Assignments and Grades:

This class has several kinds of assignments:

• Discussion questions: (15% of your final grade)

The discussion questions will be posted under the Discussion Board button on the main course menu.

You must always post your first response to the discussion board 3 days before the deadline for the assignments each week; if you miss this deadline, you will lost points on your discussion board grade because other students won't have enough time to respond to your post! This deadline is always listed on the Assignments page, under the Discussion Board description.

You can see which discussion questions have been assigned for the week by looking at the Assignments page for that week.

To see how to submit your work for the discussion board, click here.

What is required to get full credit:

• YOU MUST READ ALL OTHER STUDENT POSTS before the final deadline. If you find that another student's post makes you reconsider your answer, then you should go back and correct your post, even if that student has not commented specifically on your work.

If I find that you have not been reading other student posts, you will lose points. (If your answer has obvious errors that have been addressed by other student posts and you never repost to correct these, then it will be clear to me that you have not read the other students' posts).

• You are required to give an answer to each discussion question in your own words.

If I respond to your post and ask you to fix or clarify something you’ve said, you must respond to my post.

If other students give you feedback on how to fix your answer or explain why they think that your answer has an error, then you must respond to them by either correcting the error and reposting your answer, or if you think they are mistaken and that your answer does not have the error they have described, then explain clearly to them why the error they have pointed out is, in fact, correct.

• You must then also to at least 2 of the other students’ posts for each question.

Your replies to other students’ posts should say something substantive! It is fine to reply to another student, “Your answer really helped me to understand the concept better!”, but this post does not contain any information about the math itself, and therefore will not count as one of your two required responses.

• Lecture questions: (15% of your final grade)

• As you read the lectures, you will come to several sections of lecture questions. These questions must be completed online. To get to these questions, go to the main course webpage in Brightspace and click on the Lecture Questions button on the main course menu.

• You can save lecture questions and come back to them later, before you submit them. You can even redo them once they have been graded so that you can see if you can get a higher grade. But you must hit the submit button at the end of the lecture quesitons in order for them to be graded.

• To read about how to submit lecture questions, click here.

• Homework: (5% of your final grade)

Each chapter has its own homework problems, which you can find by looking at the Assignments page for that week.  The actual homework must be done in Brightspace.

• Quizzes: (10% of your final grade)

  Some weeks we will have a quiz , which you can find by looking at the Assignments page for that week.
  

  • The quizzes will usually be testing your knowledge of what particular abbreviations or symbols mean. They will be timed so that you have very little time for each question. You will have enough time to think for a moment and then check your answer, but you will not have enough time to look up any abbreviations! You should be able to answer these questions from memory.
  • To read about how your should submit quizzes, click here.
• Writing Assignments : (15% of your final grade)

  Some weeks we will have a writing assignment, which you can find by looking at the Assignments page for that week.

  • Each writing assignment will have 2 parts: you will submit your assignment, and then you will give (and receive) feedback to 3 other students. Then you will have the opportunity to revise the assignment and resubmit it before your final grade on the assignment is determined.
  • To read about how your should submit writing assignments, click here.

• Section Tests: (10% of your final grade each)

  Whenever we have a test assigned for that week, you will see the test assigned on the Assignments page.

  To read about how you should submit tests, click here.

  • Tests are open book, but you must do them ALONE.

    All tests will be open book, but they will be timed, and you will be expected to work on your own when you take the tests. Cheating by working with another student is still prohibited and carries and if I discover that you have cheated, you will receive a zero on the test, and if it happens more than once, a failing grade for the class.

    If you are caught cheating, you may also be turned over to the committee on academic standing, where they have the authority to expel you from CUNY if they think the offense is serious enough; if this happens, then the student can’t take any classes at any CUNY college. Cheating is very serious! So please don’t risk it!

  • Everything you write on the test should be in your own words.

    If you give an answer to an essay question that you have copied word for word from my lecture, or from the book, or from another student's posts you will get a 0 on that question!
    

  • You will take all of your tests online.

    You will have a week to take the test, during which time you can log in anytime to take the test. Be sure to take the test well before the deadline. The test will disappear after the deadline for taking it is past, and you will not be able to get in to take it after that without my permission!
  • Once you begin the test, you must finish it.

    Once you begin the test, you cannot log out and then get back in again to take the test.
    Before you take a test, be sure to close all other programs.
    While taking the test, DO NOT click on any of the browser navigation buttons (back, refresh, etc.). Otherwise, the test may freeze up and not allow you to log back in to take the test.

  • Before you take any of the tests, be sure that you are able to read all the equations!

    If you are not sure that you can do this, go here to find out:
    Click here to see if your computer is prepared to read all the equations for this class!



• Final exam: (10% of your final grade)

At the end of the class, we will have a final exam. It will be cumulative. It will be very similar in structure and difficulty to the chapter tests. If you have studied and done well on all the previous tests, you will probably do well on the final. When it is time to take the final, you will see it on that week's Assignments page. Like the tests, you will have about a week to log in to take the final. The final will also be timed and be open book/notes.

How to submit work:

Homework:

This is submitting in Brightspace, under the homework button.

Discussion Board and Writing Assignments:

The discussion board question must be answered on the discussion board; it cannot be emailed to me or put into my box. The discussion board questions can be found under the Menu button "Discussion Board." To respond to the discussion board question and to read the responses of others, simply click on the discussion board title. To read the response of someone else, simply click on it. To submit your own response, click on "Add a new Thread" at the top of the page. To respond to someone else's post after you have clicked on it and read it, simply click the "Reply" button at the right of the page that contains their post.

Writing Assignments will be submitted through www.Turnitin.com. The Writing Assignments can be found by following the links given on the Assignments page, but you can also find them by going directly to Turnitin. After you submit your writing assignment, you will review three other student papers and your own using a rubric. Then you will have the opportunity to revise your original paper based on student feedback.

Lecture Questions :

You can find the lecture questions by clicking on "Lecture Questions" on the main course webpage. You can see the questions by clicking on a particular set. Once you have gone into the lecture questions, you may print them out, or save them, but when you finally want to turn in your answers, you must complete the lecture questions online. You do this by typing or selecting your answer underneath each question. Then, if you want to be able to come back and edit your answers later, you hit the button "Save." If you are through and want to turn your answers in, you then hit "Submit." You must hit the submit button in order for me to receive your answers. If you do not, your work will not be graded and you will get a 0 on the assignment.

Many of the lecture questions can be done more than once, so if you are not happy with your grade on a set of lecture questions, you should try to go back in and redo them. However, if you go back into a set of lecture questions after you have received your score, it will erase all records of your previous attempt, so do not go back into a set of lecture questions after you have received a grade unless you want to do them over again!

Tests and Quizzes:

You can find all your tests and quizzes under the "Tests and Quizzes " button on the main course menu. Before you begin a test or quiz, you should close all other programs on your computer, to prevent the test or quiz from freezing up. To take a test or quiz, you simply click on it.

The test will show up at least a week before they are due; quizzes are generally available earlier than that. Once you begin a test or quiz you must finish it, so don't click on a test or quiz until you are ready to take it. Tests and quizzes are timed, so be sure that you are ready to do the test or quiz within the time limit; you can always find out how many questions there are on a test or quiz and what the time limit is by looking at the test or quiz description. The test and quiz questions will be randomly generated and will be given to you one at a time, so that you cannot go back once you have answered a question.

While taking a test or quiz, never hit the brower's navigation buttons such as "back", "refresh", etc., as this can cause the test or quiz to freeze up and not let you back in. You may use books and notes for the test, but you cannot work with others.

All answers must be in your own words; if you copy your answer from another student's discussion board or from my lectures or the book, you will receive no credit for your answer. This is true for all assignments in this course, not just tests and quizzes.

When you have finished the test or quiz, you should then hit "Submit" to turn the test or quiz in.

Policy on Late Work:

• What will be accepted late: lecture questions, homework problems, quizzes


• What will NOT be accepted late (without a valid excuse and permission from me): tests, discussion questions


• Penalty for late work turned in:


• Before the last day of classes: You will receive 75% of the credit for the assignment. This means that the highest grade you can get at this point on the assignment is a 75.


• After the last day of classes: You will receive NO credit on this work unless you have a valid excuse (i.e. sickness, death in the family, etc.) with some kind of documentation, and you have let me know about the problem ASAP.

To see what the last day of classes is for this semester, go to the BMCC academic calendar by clicking here. Once you go to this page, scroll down to the current semester, and see on which date the "last day of classes" falls.

What Excuses will be considered Valid enough to Get an Extension for Classwork?

• Illness or death in the family are the most obvious valid reasons why you may request an extension; just be prepared, especially if you have missed a test, to give me some kind of documentation. Other unexpected events of a magnitude similar to these may also be considered; just be sure to contact me as soon as possible.

• Technical problems: Technical problems will only be considered as grounds for an extension under certain circumstances.

Here is what you must do if you want to request an extension due to technical problems:

1. Do NOT wait until the night before work is due to begin the assigned work. Start the work for the week at least 3 days before the due date. This means, for example, that if the due date for the week is midnight on Wednesday night, you should have at least begun the work by midnight on Sunday.


2. When you encounter a technical problem with the course material, contact eLearning technical help right away. (If it is after hours, leave a message, and then call back in the morning.)
   

   Every time you contact them (in person, or by email or phone):

   1. Write down the date and time you contacted them.
   
   
   2. Write down the name of the person to whom you spoke.
   
   
   3. Write down a short but specific description of what you told them about your problem and what they told you to do about it.
   
   
   4. Email me to let me know that you’ve contacted them and to describe briefly to me what the technical problem is that you are havivng. Just remember that I cannot fix the problem; only the tech people can fix the problem. I want you to email me to let me know what is going on, but I do not have the technical expertise or the right kind of access to Brightspace to actually fix the issue.
   
   
   5. Keep contacting eLearning technical help until the problem is fixed. Sometimes it can be frustrating if you have called several times but have still not been able to get the right kind of technical help to fix your problem, but your technical problems won’t get fixed unless you keep trying.

      (I know this can be frustrating, but unfortunately, I cannot fix technical issues. It is your responsibility as the student to keep contacting the tech department at BMCC until you can get through to a person who has the expertise to solve your problem. If the first person you talk to can’t help, then ask them to transfer you or give you the name of someone with more expertise who might be able to help you. Then contact that person. Keep this up until you can get someone to fix the technical issue.)

3. Finish all other work that does not depend upon the technical issue by the deadline. For example, if you are having problems with a set of the lecture questions, be sure that you still turn in the homework and respond to the discussion question by the deadline.

College Attendance Policy

This is BMCC's official attendance policy: "At BMCC, the maximum number of absences is limited to one more hour than the number of hours a class meets in one week. For example, you may be enrolled in a three-hour class. In that class, you would be allowed 4 hours of absence (not 4 days). In the case of excessive absences, the instructor has the option to lower the grade or assign an F or WU grade."

Even though this course does not have regular face-to-face class meetings, you are still required to participate regularly and you can still be penalized for being absent. For example, if you do not login to the website for a week and do not turn in any work that week, this constitutes an absense of 3 hours. If you do not participate in the course for more than a week and a half, you can get an F or a WU grade for the course, unless you have contacted me to let me know about your situation and you make up all work once you return to the class. Remember that even though this class is online, it still has all the same requirements as a face-to-face class.

Academic Adjustments for Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations or academic adjustments for this course must contact the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities. BMCC is committed to providing equal access to all programs and curricula to all students.

BMCC Policy on Plagiarism and Academic Integrity Statement

This is BMCC's official policy on plagarism and academic integrity: "Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s ideas, words or artistic, scientific, or technical work as one’s own creation. Using the idea or work of another is permissible only when the original author is identified. Paraphrasing and summarizing, as well as direct quotations, require citations to the original source. Plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional. Lack of dishonest intent does not necessarily absolve a student of responsibility for plagiarism.

Students who are unsure how and when to provide documentation are advised to consult with their instructors. The library has guides designed to help students to appropriately identify a cited work. The full policy can be found on BMCC’s web side, www.bmcc.cuny.edu. For further information on integrity and behavior, please consult the college bulletin (also available online)."

The best way to protect yourself from plagarising the work of others is to make sure that you never write anything down that you do not understand. Do all the work you can to try to work out what the answer is to a given problem - consult my lectures, your textbook, other students, tutors, etc. Then, once you think you understand what the answers is, put all of these reference materials aside and try to write out the correct answer in your own words. Read your answer to yourself out loud and see if you think it makes sense. If it doesn't make sense to you when you read it aloud to yourself, go back and try to revise it until you think it does make sense. Try to keep your explanations as simple as possible.

On every assignment you complete in this class, even if you work with other students on it, it is your responsibility to make sure that all of your final answers are in your own words. In many cases you may consult my written lectures and discuss your work with other students, but you may never simply copy the answer another student has given or copy a portion of my lecures and turn it in as your own work. You may also never copy work from another textbook or website and turn it in as your own work. Even if you take someone else's answer and just make small changes to it, this is still considered plagarism, even if it isn't copied exactly, so you should never try to model your answer on something someone else has written, instead, you should always try to explain your answer completely in your own words.

If you cheat or plagarize on an assignment, I will give you a 0 on that assignment, and depending upon the circumstances, I may submit an official report to the college detailing the incident, which could result in disciplinary action by the college. If the instance is severe enough, I may also give you an F in the class. If you are referred for disciplinary action, the college can decide to expell you from the college so that you cannot take classes at any CUNY college. The penalites for cheating and plagarism can be very serious.

If I suspect that you may have cheated or plagarized on an assignment, I also reserve the right to ask you to come to the college to redo that assignment in person.

What to do if you are having technical trouble:

1. On the course webpage, go to “FAQs” on the main course menu. Read what it written here FIRST! Read it carefully! Many of the problems you are likely to encounter are already listed here!


2. If that doesn’t work, contact Information Technology (IT) for problems with the course webpage, Brightspace or the portal at (212) 220-8122 or at it@bmcc.cuny.edu. If you are having BMCC email trouble, contact the Help Desk at BMCC at 212-220-8379 or at helpdesk@bmcc.cuny.edu.

Each time you contact IT (or the Help Desk), write down the DATE and TIME you contacted them, and write down the NAME of the person you talked to.

Keep calling or emailing IT (or the Help Desk) until you get through to someone who is able to solve your problem. You may need to ask to be transferred to the right person.

Keep calling back until you get the problem fixed.

3. If it takes more than a day or two to fix your technical problem, then email me at profwladis@gmail.com and tell me:
   
   
   1. What the problem is:
   
   
   1. Describe to me step-by-step exactly what the problem is and what happens when you run into it. (For example, don’t just tell me that you “can’t do the lecture questions.” Instead, do tell me specifically what is wrong, like this: “When I go to the Assignments page for this week and click on the link to the lecture questions, I get an error message that says, ‘The page cannot be displayed.’”
   
   
   2. Do you have the same problem on several different computers, or just one?
   
   
   2. Approximately what day and time the problem started.
   
   
   3. Who you have contacted at IT (or the Help Desk) and when you have contacted them.

   Do not contact me with technical problems until you have already contacted IT (or the help desk)! I cannot fix any technical problems; I am not a computer technician and will not be able to help you with computer issues because I do not have the knowledge or the website access needed to fix most technical issues. Only IT (or the helpdesk) can fix computer problems. The only reason you should contact me about your technical issues is so that:

   • I am aware that you are having a problem, and
   • If several students are having the same problem, I can notify other technical people at the college of the problem so that it might be fixed more quickly.

What to do if you need help with the math:

• Ask a fellow student: Post a question under this week's Discussion Board.

  Extra credit points go to any student who posts an intelligent answer to another student’s question!

• Ask me: You can email me any questions you may have. Be sure to be specific - give me a particular problem or example that you are having trouble with and explain where you are getting lost - the more specific you are about what you don't understand, the more I can help you. "I just don't get this chapter," or "I just don't understand how to do truth tables," for example, are requests for help that don't really give me any information about what you are struggling with, and so it makes it hard for me to give you any meaningful help.
  
  
• Get tutoring:
  
  
  • The Math Lab: You can go to the Math Lab in room S511 any time they are open to get help. You can get tutoring here, but you will have to be patient, as the tutors are usually helping several students at a time in several different subjects. You will need a valid BMCC student ID to get into the math lab. The usual math lab hours are below, but you will need to be careful as these hours may change, particularly around holidays.

    Monday - Thursday 10:00am - 8:00pm

    Friday 10:00am - 7:00pm

    Saturday 10:00am - 4:00pm

    Sunday 10:00am - 5:00pm (Room S-500)

    
    For more information you can also check out the Math Lab webpage at http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/mathlab/.
    
  • The Learning Resource Center: The Learning Resource Center Offers several kinds of tutoring. You can take a look at their webpage at http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/lrc/index.html. Some specific kinds of tutoring they offer are:
    
    
    • One-on-one tutoring: To sign up for this, drop by the LRC at the main BMCC campus in room S500, call the Tutor Hotline at 212-220-1383, or email the LRC at lrc@bmcc.cuny.edu. You should have your student ID and your schedule available. If you are interested in one-on-one tutoring at the LRC, it is a good idea to check out the information about what you can expect at tutoring: http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/lrc/tutoring/expect.html or the LRC’s frequently asked questions about tutoring: http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/lrc/tutoring/faq_tutoring.html.
    
    
    • Online tutoring: The LRC also offers online e-tutoring, where you can submit any questions via email and get a response within 24 hours (or if it is a weekend or vacation, by the next day that classes are in session). To submit a question to the e-tutors, just visit the webpage: http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/etutoring/. You can also contact the e-tutoring office by phone at 212-220-1380 or by email at e-tutoring@bmcc.cuny.edu if you have any questions about the program.

Where to find things on our course webpage:

The main menu for the course is the purple menu on the left of the course webpage. It has the following menu titles:

• Announcements: Click here to look at the course announcements will be posted. Be sure to check this at least twice a week.

• Course Information: Click here to find a copy of this syllabus or look at the BMCC academic calendar.

• Assignments: Click here to see all the assignments listed by the week in which they are assigned. To see what is due each week, look here.

• Lectures: Click here to read the lectures. Just remember that in order to see what assignments go with each of the lectures, you have to look at the Assignments page. You can also get to the lectures by clicking the link to the lectures on the Assignments page for each week.

• Discussion Board: This is where you can find the discussion board. You must post your answers to the discussion questions here each week.

• Tests and Quizzes: Click here to take tests, quizzes, and test reviews.

• Homework: Click here to submit homework in Brightspace.

• Check grades: Click here to see your grades for the course or to check which work you are missing.

• Contact Prof.: Click here to see my contact information, office hours, etc.

• FAQs: Click here for frequently asked questions. If you have any questions about the course that were not answered in this syllabus, look here!

Student Learning Outcomes:

Below are the college’s general education learning outcomes; the outcomes that are checked in the left-hand column indicate goals that will be covered and assessed in this course. 

Information about the Writing Intensive nature of this course:

This is a Writing Intensive course that fulfills the WI requirement for graduation.  Writing intensive courses pay special attention to developing critical reading, writing, and analytic skills to prepare students for college-level coursework in general.  Both informal and formal writing will be designed to maximize your understanding of the subject matter.  Formal writing assignments, at least 10-12 pages total, account for a significant portion of your grade and will include opportunities for revision.