text: the official course textbook is Ordinary Differential Equations by William A Adkins and Mark G Davidson, though we will not follow it rigorously. the book is available for download from bizzell.

instructor: me

class participation: you don't need me to lecture you. the in-class meetings will involve group work and discussions, and favor the socratic method, so your participation is kindly requested. but i'll tell you some things too. you will sometimes need to compute, so it will be helpful if you bring along a calculator, abacus, rainman, or the like.

homework: homework good. make you strong. eat.

examinations: i will examine you every day. why make a special occasion of it? still, there will be

quizzes: we'll have many in-class quizzes, which will usually be announced at least one class in advance. quiz rules (time, open note, calculators, collaboration, etc) will vary by quiz and be explained per quiz.

project: there will also be a project, due at our scheduled final exam period. more details will be given later, but you should plan on spending a fair amount of time each of the last several weeks of the semester on it. i expect at least part of the project will be computational.

grades: don't worry about grades, just worry about understanding. or don't worry about anything. being an honors class, i expect most of you will get an a, provided you put in the effort. if you care, i will compute a numerical score made up of

25% in-class participation (mostly graded on attendance, but if i think you're not participating enough, i'll let you know)
25% homework
25% quizzes
25% project

(if you don't care, i will just give you an a or an f, depending on the way in which you don't care.) if you are worried about your grade at some point though, just ask me. (just don't ask me "what do i need on the final to get an X"?)

final remark: if you have a question about course policies or expectations, just ask.

oh, also there's some stuff my bosses make me say

course home