Detailed course policies are contained in the syllabus which was presented on the first day of classes.

Contact information

For content (i.e. math) questions, please post to our Piazza page. I will not answer content questions by email so everyone can benefit from everyone's questions. You can still sign up for Piazza even if you lost the email you received.

If you have a personal matter to discuss, the best way to contact me is via email at christelle dot vincent at you-know-where. Please use full grammatical sentences in your writing and be nice when asking for something.

Office Hours

My office hours are on

I am also available by appointment; please send me an email to set it up.

All office hours take place in my office, 407 Henry Marcus Lord House.

Textbook and solutions manual

Our textbook is Elementary Number Theory, seventh edition, by David M. Burton.

Quizzes

Only your top ten quizzes will count as part of your grade this semester. I anticipate giving somewhere between 20 and 30 in-class quizzes.

If you miss a quiz, you will get a score of zero, but that is okay because it will most likely get dropped. If you must miss so much class that you do not have ten quiz grades, please talk to me as soon as possible. There are never ever any make-up quizzes.

On marked days, we will have a reading quiz. For the reading quiz you can have a single page (double-sided) of notes from the reading to help you answer the question.

Suggested problems

Most days there will be suggested problems, and the not-reading quizzes will ask you about these problems. Seriously working on these problems regularly will be crucial to success in the class.

Homework

Almost every week there will be homework (approximately 10 during the semester).

Homework is due on Monday (or Wednesday if Monday is a holiday) at 5pm and must be turned in either in class or at my office. If you turn it in somewhere else I will almost certainly not find it or if I do most likely I will lose it. Your two lowest homework scores will be dropped.

Homework must be stapled and have your full name. If that is not the case you might get a score of zero.

Exams

There will be two in-class exams, tentatively on Wednesday, March 1 and Wednesday, April 12. The final exam is on May 11, from 10:30am to 1:15pm, in Votey 254.

The exams will not be individually scaled or curved. However, your final grade in this class will be. What this means is that I have an idea of the distribution of As, Bs, Cs, Ds and Fs that is typical in this class. At the end of the semester, I will look at everyone's numerical grade, and assign numerical cut-offs to letter grades so that our grade distribution is what I want it to be.

My exams are hard and my averages are low. I am, however, a generous letter-grade giver.

Academic (dis)honesty

The UVM Code of Academic Integrity is in effect in this class as always. Please familiarize yourself with it if you haven't already.

Specifically, in this class you may work on assigned homework (which you turn in) with peers, but the work you turn in must be your own and reflect your own understanding of the material. All quizzes and exams must strictly and exclusively be your own work, and be completed without access to notes, books or any outside resources (except reading quizzes where you may use one sheet of notes).

Suggested problems may be completed however you would like; I recommend working on them with peers but taking the time to look at your solutions on your own when you are done to make sure that you understand them.