Adam Lucas
MWF 1:00pm - 2:00pm, 2050 Dwinelle 155
alucas AT berkeley DOT edu
M 11-12pm, W 11-1pm in the Student Learning Center Atrium
Probability, Jim Pitman. Students can view and download the text online at FallerLink (campus network access required). An affordable paperback copy may also be purchased through this link.
Emails, zoom link and office hours of the GSIs available on the Staff page.
Mastery of the material in Appendices 1-4 of the text, fluency with calculus (derivatives and integrals) in two variables, and – these are crucial – clear logical reasoning and strong problem-solving skills. Test yourself on some practice problems.
The primary class website is stat134.org. This will contain staff info and HW; lecture notes and videos will be on bcourses.
There will be a student run Ed site for this class. The top ten student answerers (i.e. students who respond to other student’s questions) will get up to 1% extra credit added to theri final grade total in b-courses. Join here.
Daily assignments (multiple choice) are posted on bCourses/Quizzes after each lecture and are due before the start of the next class.
You are allowed multiple attempts and given the average score of the attempts.
Your lowest three daliy homework will be dropped.
Assignments are posted on the Homework tab here. They are usually due on Wednesday (noted below) on Gradescope.
Papers will be graded on a 0/1 scale. Each assignment will consist of 8 problems. A good attempt at 6 or more problems will receive the score of 1; anything else will get 0. Course staff will define what constitutes a "good attempt." We will be looking for reasoning and detailed work shown – it is assumed that you will show work or provide reasoning whether or not the question asks for it.
Your two lowest homework scores will be dropped from the computation of the homework component of your final grade. If you add the class after the first HW is due, you must use one of your drops.
No late homeworks will be accepted and cheating will not be tolerated. While you are encouraged to work with other people, you must write up your own solutions.
Be a top 10 Ed answerer. This is also worth one percent EC.
There will also be three quizzes during the term, in section, on dates listed in the calendar below. There will be a convenient time for international students. You must take your quiz in the section in which you are enrolled. Students with DSP accommodationsmust contact Prof. Lucas to make arrangements as necessary.
Q1: Thursday, February 2
Q2: Thursday, February 16
Q3: Thursday, March 23
You may drop your lowest quiz score from the computation of the quiz component of your final grade.
We will attempt to keep the difficulty of the quizzes uniform but it is out of our control if students do better on one quiz than another and no normalization of quiz scores will be made.
Midterm 1: Wednesday March 1, class time.
Midterm 2: Friday April 21, take home midterm (details TBA).
Final: Tuesday May 9 8-11am
Maximum Of:
10% Weekly Homework, 5% Daily Homework, 10% Quizzes, 20% Midterm 1, 10% take home Midterm 2, 45% Final
10% Weekly Homework, 5% Daily Homework, 10% Quizzes, 10% take home Midterm 2, 65% Final
Your two lowest homework scores and your lowest quiz score will be dropped.
If you don't take the final exam, you will not pass the class.
This class is graded on a curve so approximately 30% A, 30% B, 30% C in the class.
Being an online class academic honesty is of particular concern. I will do everything I can to remove incentives for you to feel like you need to cheat. Please know that I take the Berkeley honor code very seriously and have years of experience catching cheaters. If we suspect someone of cheating, we reserve the right to give the student an oral quiz or exam and test if the student understands what they wrote.
Please familiarize yourself with UCBs Academic Honesty Policy (see the Center for Student Conduct website: http://sa.berkeley.edu/conduct). ). I encourage you to discuss homework problems with other students and to work together, but copying is never appropriate. (You should never write down anything you don't understand!) I strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with the definition of plagiarism, and to avoid engaging in it. Violations of the UCB’s Academic Honesty Policy, including instances of plagiarism, will be reported to the University and an appropriate penalty will be implemented. (This may range from a failing grade on an assignment to an “F” for the course, in addition to writing letters of reflection and apology to UCB’s administration.)
Homework: stat134.org/homework.html You will also find helpful strategies for attacking the problems -- I highly recommend you read through it at least once.
Reading Guide: stat134.org/readings.html
Students with Disabilities: Students needing accommodations should send me email and/or speak with me during office hours and see http://dsp.berkeley.edu to learn about Berkeley’s policy.