The Applied Mathematics Department is dedicated to making mathematics accessible to all students in its classes. Nationally about 40% of all students who take Calculus I fail it at least once. In an attempt to increase the percentage of students who pass Calculus I and II, instructors, teaching assistants and research assistants offer Calculus I and II students the opportunity to participate in small group oral reviews (referred to as “orals”).
Any student in APPM 1356 may take an oral on the Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday before each of the three written mid-term exams, after signing up in advance. These orals generally have 5 students and a facilitator. An oral takes 50 minutes. The facilitator asks students conceptual questions about the main topics that will be covered on the written exam. Students are expected to explain concepts verbally, draw graphs to support their reasoning, and negotiate understanding with the facilitator and with the other students in the group.
These oral reviews are optional and are not graded. They are meant to help students develop a deeper understanding of important concepts which in turn will help them be more effective in deciding what procedures and problem solving techniques are appropriate for given problems. Orals seem to be most helpful to students who have studied for the exam before taking the oral.
All orals will be given on the Monday and Tuesday before the written mid-term exams:
Oral exams will occur several rooms across campus. Here are directions to those rooms which are more difficult to find.
NOTE: If your oral exam is scheduled at 5 PM or later, the outer door of this complex will be locked. You should meet your facilitator AT the outer door just before the exam is scheduled to begin. She/he will let you into the BOLD center complex.
The Discovery Learning Center (DLC) is the building north-east of the Engineering Center at the corner of Colorado and Regents Drive. The 2nd floors of the two buildings are connected by a bridge that you may have walked under. DLC 207 is a room ON that bridge.
This is the conference room in the BOLD Center.
Enter the Engineering Center through the revolving doors. Continue to walk east, past the tables and chairs in the lobby. Turn RIGHT at the second hallway, which is about 5 m in front of the double doors marked "Administrative Offices". Walk south in that hallway about 30 m to a door on your left, next to two large windows on your left, numbered ECCE 100. This set of rooms houses the BOLD center. Walk in, and turn LEFT into the hallway there. Look for a room on your RIGHT, marked ECCE116.
Directions: In the Engineering Center, take the elevator to the second floor. In the hallway slightly to your right, ECOT 226 is the first room on your left. (The Applied Math Office is directly across from this room.)
In the Engineering Center take the elevator to the ground floor. Go EAST of the elevator, across the courtyard, to the ECEE wing. Find a hallway that leads east from the courtyard, past the office of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. ECEE 1B28 is a classroom on your right in that hallway.
Go to the website for the Oral Exam Scheduler.