Homework Assignments & Quizzes

There will be a graded homework assignment for each section we cover.    All assignments (homework & quizzes) will be available from the first day of the semester, but must be done by the posted due date at 11:59 p.m.  Students may work ahead as far as they like.  Manage your time & schedule so that you can complete the assignments ahead of time when necessary.  There will be no make-up assignments.

The number of times you can take each assignment is unlimited prior to its due date.  Each assignment will consist of approximately 10 – 20 questions. The entire assignment must be submitted all at once; however, each time you attempt an assignment, you’ll only have to rework the problems you missed on the previous attempt.  You should definitely try to take each assignment until you get every problem correct.  Since notes are not allowed when taking exams, you should work the assignments problems until you can do them without notes.

The links to the graded assignments, along with the corresponding due dates, are all found under the Assignments link on the left-hand navigation bar in our course Canvas site.

After you’ve read through this entire syllabus and the other documents, click on the Thinkwell content link on the left-hand navigation bar of our Canvas course site.  Thinkwell is the publisher of the online text we will be using.  The first time you do this, you’ll be asked to purchase access with a credit or debit card (cheapest option), enter an access code you’ve already purchased at the NCTC bookstore, or get temporary access for 14 days.

Once you’ve passed the purchasing part, expand the third chapter, Orientation and Getting Started Materials, by clicking on the triangle to the left of the chapter title.  Once you have looked through all of the Orientation and Getting Started Materials, you are ready to start learning the course material.

Each chapter will expand to sections, each section expands to subsections, and each subsection expands to reveal the learning materials for that subsection (Book pages, Video Lesson, Video sample solutions, & Interactive Practice).  

I highly recommend you watch each video lesson and do the interactive practice.  Each video lesson is done by Professor Ed Burger, the author of the text, and averages about 7 minutes in length.  The Interactive Practice consists of 1 – 4 problems that can be done unlimited times.  These are not part of your grade, but will give you feedback as to whether or not you understand the material.  The Book pages are just what they say – online text pages.  You may find that you like reading through these in addition to watching the videos.  The Video sample solutions are a handful of additional examples you can view for each subsection.

At the end of each section, you will find a Practice Quiz (Not for Grade) and Practice Book Exercises.  Both of these are always available and may be done unlimited times.  The Practice Quiz problems will change some on each attempt.  The Practice Book Exercises are static – they never change.  I recommend you attempt the Practice Quiz at the end of each section and read the solutions for feedback before you try the corresponding Graded assignment for that section. 

The accessibility statement for Canvas is available at http://www.canvaslms.com/accessibility (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site. .

Thinkwell runs on the same Canvas platform, so this statement also applies to Thinkwell.

If you have any additional needs to access the course content, please contact me.

I will check emails periodically Monday thru Friday and will try to respond within 24 hours.  Email will not be checked over the weekend, holidays, or after 5 pm on any weekday.  Keep in mind if there are any emails that are urgent over the weekend TRY not to panic.  The solution probably can be resolved quickly upon the beginning of the week. 

Be mindful of the tone that is presented in emails.  If it is aggressive, unprofessional, or is academically offensive in anyway, the professor will not reply.  Know that the student’s name may be given to the Associate Dean of Denton County Campuses for further review. 

In an effort to keep everyone within this class on an equal playing field regarding IT issues, everyone will be held to the same process and standards. 

Be sure that you are doing all of your assignments on a reliable computer with sufficient battery life and appropriate Internet connectivity.   The instructor cannot help instances of computers “shutting down,” “crashing,” “running slow,” or “electrical outages due to a storm,” etc.  Be mindful of this before you begin any assignments.   The burden rests solely on the student if there is a problem mid-assignment and it truly rests with someone other than the student, you will have to:

1.Create an e-ticket at  http://www.nctc.edu/eLearning_Department/Support.aspx (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Select “submit a request.” 

Describe the problem to the e-Learning Department and produce the evidence to support your technological issue.  Include screenshots via computer or phone of the error message or issue.  In addition, include dates and times within the screenshots or photos.

2. Forward the emailed response to the instructor from the e-Learning Department if there is evidence to support your claim.  That includes the response that the Canvas help desk delivered with the overwhelming amount of data regarding your issue to indicate that the technical difficulty was through no fault of the students.  Do not email the instructor if the e-Learning Department cannot verify your technical difficulty.  Please include your “request number” in parenthesis which can be found in the email from e-Learning.

3. Then the instructor will gather all evidence from the student, e-Learning, and from the student activity from within Canvas to make an appropriate decision in moving forward with the request to re-open assignments.  If students do not provide a good defense, the instructor will not likely re-open any assignments. 

4. Finally, THE INSTRUCTOR WILL LOOK AT THE ENTIRE RECORD OF THE STUDENTS’ ACTIVITY ON CANVAS.  If the student makes a false claim regarding technical difficulties, they should expect to be dropped from the course at the point of the offense.  This is child’s play to look at students’ Canvas activity so avoid being inventive of any fictitious IT stories.

On a personal note:   This syllabus is our contract; it cannot and will not be amended by students for personal issues.  This is not limited to birthdays, deaths, hospital/incarceration stays, or minor holidays.  Everyone is held to the same standard in this class.

Decreased stress for this class can be traced back to utilizing a calendar system (for all assignment due dates), working on a reliable computer, and not waiting until the last minute to get started on assignments (cheating, plagiarism, creating fictitious I.T. stories, and sloppy work can get the very best under these conditions). 

Overall, I would respect a student more if they honestly could not complete an assignment rather than invent creative stories, blame others, recycle assignments or copy other work.  In short, these issues just waste my time and could get the student in more academic trouble and potentially expelled from college.

The exams are not online.

They are pencil & paper and must be proctored. You must bring to each exam:  pencils, a scientific calculator (non-graphing), and a photo ID. No notes of any kind will be allowed during exams. See canvas for tentative exam schedule.