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Section11Contributions

We are piloting a new, open-source textbook in this course called ORCCA. Even better, PCC owns the copyright. All this means that you can contribute to the textbook and your work might appear in the book in future terms!

  • Choose any one section of the book from chapters 10 through 14.

  • Your assignment is to find something nontrivial about the section that you could improve. For instance, you might add a new application example, complete with a full explanation. You might find a discussion that you do not understand well, and then rewrite it so it makes more sense. There are many other things you might do, but you need to do something nontrivial. (Just fixing a typo will not result in a good grade for this project.) If you are uncertain if your idea would qualify, please bring it to me and I'll let you know.

    • If you choose a section from chapter 10, it is due Tuesday April 17.

    • If you choose a section from chapter 11, it is due Tuesday May 1.

    • If you choose a section from chapter 12, it is due Tuesday May 15.

    • If you choose a section from chapter 13, it is due Tuesday June 5.

    • If you choose a section from chapter 14, it is due Thursday June 14.

    (You may always turn in your work early.)

  • Your work may be turned in electronically or hand-written on paper. Please, if you did make it electronically, then turn in the electronic form of the work by emailing it to me.

  • You will be graded according to the rubric below.

We are serious about adding student content to this book, but only with your permission. If you agree to release your work with a Creative Commons Attribution license, then the PCC math faculty will examine it and in some cases we will add it to the book. If that happens, you will be credited in the book as a contributor!

Your grade will not be affected whether or not you agree to have your work added to the book.

Rubric

Out of 100 points for this assignment:

  • 5 points for opening with a clear description of your intent: what you are doing and why you are doing it. This description of intent should be one paragraph or less. For example, “I am adding an example to section 2.1 because I felt it needed another example of this type”. Or, “I am rewriting the explanation on page 314 because it didn't make sense to me, and I think the way I've written it sounds better”. Also, please specifically state whether or not you would release your work with a Creative Commons Attribution license for possibly adding it to the book.

  • 35 points for how clear your submission is. For example, you would lose points for sentences that do not make sense as sentences. Or you would lose points if your submission comes with a graph whose details are unlcear. Or you could lose points for reaching some conclusion without explaining the steps that lead to that conclusion. And there are other potential issues with clarity too. Bring your work to me before turing it in, and I can let you know how it stands with respect to clarity. If you do lose points for clarity, I will explain how/why.

  • 15 points for keeping your submission reasonalby concise while still keeping it clear. This should be an easy item to ace. You simply need to avoid letting your work go off into side discussions that are not relevant to the mathematics you are trying to teach.

  • 25 points for having no incorrect mathematics in your work. Since these contributions may end up in the book, we don't want any errors!

  • 20 points for submitting something that fits well into the section you are improving. For instance, if you were to add an example about advanced number theory to the section on graphing lines, you would probably get zero out of 20. If your work is a bad fit in more subtle ways, you might not get all 20 points here. Bring your work to me before turing it in, and I can let you know how well it seems to fit. If you do lose points for this item, I will explain how/why.