Instructions for turning in extra
credit
Homework assignments
The purpose of the
extra credit
assignments is to keep you
challenged if you find the regular assignments too easy, or if you want
to learn the material at a deeper level than normally covered in class.
Therefore, I discourage
you from doing extra credit assignments if you have difficulty
completing the regular homework. In the latter case, you need to see
the instructor for help; otherwise, you will most likely receive low
grades for quizzes and tests. In
other words, you may do extra credit assignments if you are doing well
on regular ones (and possibly finding them too easy), but you should not try doing extra credit problems just to get extra points, and especially so if you are struggling with the regular assignments.
Your solutions of the extra credit problems must be writtten in
detail and neatly. I will not grade solutions which are either
presented sloppily or are missing a substantial amount of detail.
In order to have your extra
credit assignment graded, (i)
you must also turn in the non-WebAssign part of your regular homework
for
the same section, and (ii)
this entire regular homework (i.e., its WebAssign and non-WebAssign
parts combined) must be more than 80%
correct. I will not grade
the non-WebAssign part of the submitted regular homework, but only mark
mistakes that you have made (if
any). The hand-written part that you will hand in must be written
neatly and stapled. Again: I will
not accept a sloppily prepared extra credit work.
As with the regular homework, you are encouraged
to seek help of the
instructor with this additional homework. However, since this brings
you extra credit, I
will only give you a hint, but will not guide you through the entire
solution, as I
normally would do with a regular homework problem.
When doing an extra credit assignment, you may also work together with a classmate (but see a Clarification two
paragraphs below this one). Keep in mind,
however, that this
will be beneficial to you only if you understand the solution
and, most importantly, are able to
repeat it on your own. I will check, at my
discretion, whether you can do so, by asking you to repeat the
solution and explain its steps to me.
If you are unable to clearly do so, this will be considered academic
cheating. As such, it will be reported to the UVM Center for
Student Conduct. In addition, the first
instance of it
will result in an appropriate (at my sole discretion) reduction of your final course grade by between 5% and 7%. I.e.,
instead of receiving, for example, 0.4% added to your final numeric
grade, you will have between 5 and 7% subtracted from it. For the second instance, I will recommend to the Center for
Student Conduct to give the student an XF for the course. No exceptions
will be made from this policy.
Since Generative AI can produce detailed, step-by-step solutions to any of the assigned problems, you should expect that, as a rule,
I will be summonning everyone submitting an extra credit assignment for
the first several (about five) submissions, i.e., until I know you well
enough, to check whether you can explain the solution to me on your own. Of
course, I can, at my sole discretion, continue doing so on any later
submissions as well. Failure to explain the solution to my satisfaction
will entail the consequences described in the previous paragraph.
Clarification
on how I will handle collaborative extra-credit work
If you work with your classmate(s) as a group, you should just submit
one
solution and put all your names on it. (Each group member must still
submit their regular homework, as described above.) Then I
will divide the extra credit points by the number of people in the
group and multiply the result by 1.5. This
will still add bonus points to your final grade, of course; just fewer
of them than if you had done the work all by yourself. If you have
collaborated only on a subset of extra credit problems, the above
"division rule" will apply only to those problems which you will
indicate on the front page.
Example:
John and Mary did one extra credit problem (A) together and, in
addition, John did one problem (B) by himself and Mary did two (B and
C) by herself. Then:
-
They each submit their separate regular assignments. John also includes
the bonus problem B with his, and Mary includes bonus problems B and C,
with her regular assignment.
- One of them (say, John) submits problem A and indicates that he and Mary have worked on it together. Mary should then not submit problem A.
-
Suppose each problem is worth 1 point. Then John gets
0.5*1.5+1=1.75, and Mary, 0.5*1.5+2=2.75, bonus
points.
- Note again that both John and Mary must be able to separately explain the solution of problem A to me; failure to do so will entail the consequences stated above in red to both John and Mary.
If
several students submit essentially the same solutions that have merely
cosmetic differences (at my discretion) and fail to acknowledge
collaboration, then for the first time,
I will subtract the whole weight of the problem in question (instead of
adding part of it) to their scores. This will be done for each bonus
problem that they have collaborated on but failed to acknowledge the
collaboration. Please note: Each person in the group is still responsible for being able to clearly explain to me the solution. Failure to do so by even one student in the collaborating group will entail - for everyone in the collaborating group - the consequences described three paragraphs above.
If a submission of merely cosmetically different works occurs for the
second time, I will not give extra credit but will, instead, treat this
as the 1st instance of academic cheating (see
above) for each member of the collaborating group. (I.e., in this case
I will not even go to the lengths of checking if any student
understood the submitted solutions.) A repeated submission of merely cosmetically different works will be treated as a 2nd instance of academic cheating (see above).
If you are unsure about any of these
rules, ask me before submitting your work.