Course Staff

Instructors:

TAs:

• Alexis Lee
• Adrien Tabor
• Conrad Hsu
• Cynthia Feeney (Graduate TA)
• Elayna Douglas
• Emilio Aleman
• Hannah Hollenbeck
• Hannah Rappaport
• Khoa Nguyen
• Maggie Yan
• Rolando Ortega

Communicating with Course Staff:

Course Resources

Discussion Board/Announcements:

Class Activities

Lecture Times:

• Section 01 is C/D block, MWF 9:30-10:20 in 160 Cummings
• Section 02 is E block, MWF 10:30-11:20 in 160 Cummings

Lecture Participation:

• Coming to lecture and discussing ideas is an important component of understanding the material. If you have to miss a day, please get notes from a classmate or come to OH to understand the material you missed.
• There is a set of corresponding videos made in spring 2021 that you will have access to. These are a great source of review for topics covered in lecture. If you have to miss a day of class, you can use these as an additional resource.
• To promote engagement, keep everyone on pace, and give me feedback on what you understand, for some lectures I will ask for a short lecture response turned in at the end of lecture. These will count as your Participation grade. I will drop two (i.e. you can miss two with no penalty).

Classroom environment:

Workshops and Worksheets:

Office hours:

Schedule

Date	Hwk #	Sections (3rd ed)	Topic(s)
Feb 9	5	13	Combinatorial Proofs
Feb 11	5	14	Relations
Feb 13	5	15	Equivalence Relations
Feb 16	-	-	-
Feb 18	6	16	Partitions (Tufts Monday Schedule)
Feb 19	6	22 begin	Induction
Feb 20	6	17 begin	Binomial Coefficients
Feb 23	7	17 cont.	Binomial Coefficients cont.
Feb 25	7	22 cont.	Strong Induction
Feb 27	7	32, BayesThm	---Optional bonus material: Bayes Rule, Conditional Probs & Independence---
Mar 2	8	20	Contradiction and Contrapositive
Mar 4	8	24	Functions
Mar 6	8	25	Pigeonhole Principle
Mar 9	-	13–17, 20, 22, 24–25, 32	---review---
Mar 11	-	13–17, 20, 22, 24–25, 32	Exam 2
Mar 13	9	25, 29	---Optional bonus material: Big-O, Cantor's Thm---

Date	Hwk #	Sections (3rd ed)	Topic(s)
Mar 23	10	35, 36	Mod operation, Euclid's Algorithm
Mar 25	10	36 cont.	Euclid's Algorithm cont.
Mar 27	10	37	Modular arithmetic
Mar 30	11	43	Fermat's Little Theorem
Apr 1	11	43 cont.	Euler's Theorem
Apr 3	11	44, 46	RSA Cryptography
Apr 6	12	47	Graphs: Intro
Apr 8	12	48	Graphs: Subgraphs
Apr 10	12	49	Graphs: Connectedness
Apr 13	13	50	Graphs: Trees
Apr 15	-	35-37, 43, 44, 46-50	---review---
Apr 17	TBD	TBD	Hold for Tufts Snow Day
Apr 20	-	-	-
Apr 22	14	51, 52, 53	---Optional bonus material: Eulerian Graphs, Coloring, Planar Graphs---
Apr 24	-	35-37, 43, 44, 46-50	Exam 3
Apr 27	-	---all---	---Review for final---

May 1	-	---all---	Final exam 12-2pm
May 4	-	---all---	Final exam 12-2pm

Grading

• 70% of your grade is based on e1+e2+e3+f+f, except you get to drop the lowest of the 5 scores (final is 2 scores).
• 5% is based on participation
• 25% is based on homework. No homework assignments are dropped but there are occasional bonus problems you can do to raise your homework score or make up for missed problems.

Your numerical grade will be converted to a letter grade as follows:

• 90–100+: A-, A, A+
• 80–89.9: B-, B, B+
• 65–79.9: C-, C, C+
• 50–64.9: D-, D, D+

• Exam 1 is Fri Feb 6
• Exam 2 is Wed Mar 11
• Exam 3 is Fri Apr 24

Final Exam: The final exam will be in-person, as indicated below. You are welcome to attend either of these final exam blocks; if you switch sections you must RSVP on a piazza post which will appear the week before finals.

• Section 01 (C/D block), final exam is Mon May 4 from 12–2pm
• Section 02 (E block), final exam is Fri May 1 from 12–2pm

• You are allowed four "tokens" to be used at your discretion for a 24-hour automatic extension on the homework.
• You don't have to do anything to "use" a token; computations are simply based on the timestamp from Gradescope on your submission.
• Two tokens can be used on the same assignment (for a 48-hour extension). Or more if you arrange a longer extension.
• Beyond the allotted tokens, late homework will count as 0, which will be applied to the lowest late homework(s) overall to minimize impact. So it is always worth turning in homeworks even if you are late and already used all your tokens. Also because we will still grade it for feedback. And we will consider it if you are on a grade boundary.
• You are responsible for keeping track of whether you have used the tokens or not (see Gradescope).
• If you have a valid reason for additional extensions, you should notify your Dean and/or the Health Services. Decisions on any extension requests will be made in consultation with your Dean.

Proofwriting and Rewrites: A core component of Discrete Math is developing your ability to reason logically and communicate your argument clearly and convincingly. Namely, proofwriting! Writing proofs in math is like writing essays in English; you need lots of practice and feedback. Thus, when you submit proofs (worth 5 pts) on your homework, you will get a grade of 5, 4, or Rewrite. If you get a Rewrite, you then improve and resubmit the proof and can still earn up to full credit.

HW Collaboration Policy: You are welcome and encouraged to talk to the Instructors, TAs or other students about HW problems, but if so please follow the "sandwich" rule:

• first read and think about the problem by yourself,
• then work with others if desired, and then
• the final form that you turn in for grading should be written by you alone using your own words.

In general, you should assume that problems require justification---no credit for correct answers with no justification.

Typesetting homeworks using LaTeX (optional but recommended): If you are exploring LaTeX for the first time (this is a GREAT time to start), TAs with some LaTeX familiarity are starred in the OH list on Piazza. In order to run LaTeX you will need to do ONE of the following.

Academic Integrity

Tips for being a successful student in Discrete Math

• Come to OH! Just hang out and do homework. No advance questions needed. But if you get stuck, we're right there!
• Read the textbook, either before or after lecture, whatever works best for you.
• Post and/or answer questions on Piazza
• Keep track of all questions/confusions that arise during class. Ask during class, or afterwards in OH or Piazza.