Mathematics 225:
Discrete Structures – Computer Science I
Fall 2008

with McGuire

This course covers the mathematical foundations of Computer Science. Topics include logic, sets, counting techniques, cardinality, relations, functions and sequences, matrices, mathematical induction, and computer science applications.

Course Web-site: http://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~mcguire/teaching/225/ Course-materials are available there.

Instructor: Hugh McGuire

E-mail: mcguire@cis.gvsu.edu
If your e-mail comprises just generic questions about things such as assignments and course-material — like questions that students pose during lectures — then as in lectures where everyone can hear students' questions and the instructor's responses, I may forward the e-mail and the response to all the students in the class. This is naturally useful because after that, I won't need to respond repeatedly to other individual e-mails asking the same questions. BUT in case the sender of the e-mail might not want such publicity associated specifically with them, when I do this forwarding, I remove information in the e-mail that identifies the sender.
Office: Mackinac C-2-316
Telephone: 331-2915
Office hours: M 1:00-1:50 p.m., W 9:00-9:50 a.m., and F 1:00-1:50 p.m.
And actually, I'm happy to discuss course-matters with you outside of those hours; those office hours are simply the official hours when I definitely should be available in my office. Try e-mailing or telephoning to check whether I'm there other times, or check my schedule via the following link: http://www.cis.gvsu.edu/Schedule/Schedule.php?fname=Hugh&lname=McGuire

Remember, at any random time, if you have a question, try sending it to mcguire@cis.gvsu.edu ; I may be able to help you thus even outside of office hours.

Tutors: GVSU has many resources to facilitate your work; for a schedule for tutors, see http://www.gvsu.edu/tc/ .
For mathematical tutors, see http://www.gvsu.edu/math/found.html#TC .

Re being with people working on computers such as at office hours, here's a little note about computer etiquette: To be polite, when someone is typing a password, look away from their hands at the keyboard.

Class Sessions

MWF 10:00 to 10:50 a.m. at MAK A-2-167

Prerequisite: MTH 122 or equivalent:

College Algebra[:] functions [...] including polynomial, rational, radical, exponential, logarithmic, and inverse functions; [...] sequences and series[;] equations, inequalities, and systems of nonlinear equations.

Textbook(s)

You need the following:

Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications (6th ed.) by Kenneth Rosen.

I expect you to do homework assignments in teams of 2, so not every individual one of you needs to purchase each book; it should suffice if teammates share books.
If our university bookstore sells out of an item, then naturally ask them to order more for you.

Optional books

Concrete Mathematics by Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, and Oren Patashnik.
This is a nice book with very thorough/deep coverage of material of this course.
Naive Set Theory by Paul R. Halmos.
This book presents the somewhat 'behind-the-scenes' foundations of topics of this course. It's actually somewhat engaging; e.g. it begins as follows: "A pack of wolves, a bunch of grapes, or a flock of pigeons..."

Systems

As usual, you need an e-mail account set up with GVSU. (See http://www.student.gvsu.edu/ .) I e-mail announcements, clarifications of assignments, summaries of scores, etc. to this account of yours. If you want such e-mails from me to go to you somewhere beyond your GVSU student e-mail, e.g. to a different e-mail account that you already have with Yahoo or Hotmail or such, try to arrange that with GVSU's Student E-mail service (and/or GVSU's Student Information System (SIS)).

Then, we'll actually be using some software for some of the work here. This software will be available on the CIS Department's EOS computers. You should have familiarity with those computers if you are taking or have already taken CS 163.
If you are not taking and have not already taken CS 163, then you need to arrange to attend the first few lab sessions in some section of CS 163 to learn how to use EOS computers; consult me regarding this.

Work

Weighting of Work (tentative)
Participation: 2%, Homework assignments: 48%, Midterm examinations: 25%, Final examination: 25%.
Within each category of work, individual items (such as individual assignments) have weights depending on their importance.

Tests
The first midterm quiz/examination will be tentatively on September 10 (Wednesday). The final examination will be tentatively on December 9 (Tuesday) from 12:00 to 1:50 p.m., possibly in a room other than our normal lecture-room. I may ask you to bring an 8.5×11-inches 'blue-book' for the final examination. But other than that, you shouldn't need to bring any 'scantron' forms or blue-books for tests: with the other tests, I'll provide spaces for you to write your answers.

Participation
When I call upon you during lecture, you earn the credit for participation by simply saying one pertinent thing. You do not need to answer a question completely correctly; if I want more than the answer you give, I can call upon more people.

If you really don't want me to call on you during lectures, just tell me and I won't.

Beyond being called upon, further opportunities for you to earn credit for participation may include your asking pertinent questions, and/or in-class exercises.

Home-/Lab-Assignments:
You'll have assignments due each week at lectures. At the top on the front of your submission, you should identify your work with your names. I need you to submit printed/written (a.k.a. 'hard') copies of your work (because having hardcopies facilitates grading in various ways).

Please Do Homework in Teams of Two for this class
While each of you needs to learn all the course material here, e.g. so you'll know it for tests, I actually want you to do homework in teams of two for this course. (In case it's not clear, this means working together and doing only one submission rather than having two submissions, one from each teammate.) An advantage for you to do this is that you should get scores higher than you would otherwise, because I expect that you'd be checking each other's work. An advantage for me if you do this is that it would cut in half my workload for grading — in some sense, your checking each other's work would be doing some of the work of grading. But then, considering how your working in teams would shift some of my workload to you that way, plus considering the hassle it may be for you to coordinate working with another person, I'll reward people who work in teams of two by increasing their score by five percent.

But if you still won't work in a team of two even considering the advantages/rewards I've indicated for that (say because you just can't do it for some reason), don't worry about other people receiving higher grades than you unfairly, just because they work in teams and you don't: I will determine grade cutoffs ("A-"/"B+", "B"/"B-", etc.) according to the base scores, not the scores with those extra rewards added. That is to say, even if you work alone, you can still get scores that are considered perfect and thus get an "A" in this course.

Incidentally, this policy is for this particular class that I'm teaching. Other classes — even other classes that I teach — may have different policies. So, you shouldn't think that working in teams is OK in other classes unless the policies given to you in those other classes say that it's OK.

One last point about this is as follows: Don't do homework in ~~teams of more than two~~ here: I would actually consider that excessive sharing/division of work for this course.

Lectures

Though our textbook contains all of this course's material, sometimes students are interested in using my lecture notes as an additional source for this course's material. For this, I'll try to provide lecture notes in my Web-site for this course before presenting them so that you can print them, bring them to lectures, and write on them there. Further, just in case you might miss a lecture, in my Web-site for this course I'll provide the additional material that gets written into my lecture notes after they're presented.
(Incidentally, I don't bother providing all of my material all together because our textbook does that, so it would be redundant. I encourage you to write the additional material into the lecture notes because I believe you learn it better by doing so.)

Special Needs?
If there is any student in this class who has special needs because of a learning, physical, or other disability, please contact me and Disability Support Services (DSS) (via 616.331.2490). Furthermore, if you have a disability and think you will need assistance evacuating our classroom and/or building in an emergency situation, please make me aware so I can develop a plan to assist you.

Drop Deadline
Just in case, note that the Registrar's deadline to drop a course this semester is 5:00 p.m. October 24 (Friday). If you remain enrolled past that deadline, then you will definitely get a grade for this course.