Instructor: Dr. Paul Regier Time: 1:30–2:55 PM Tuesday/Thursday
Email: Place: Austin Hall 213
Office hours: paulregier.com/office-hours

1 Course Description

Study of ordinary differential equations, their applications, and methods of obtaining solutions. (3 credit hours)

Prerequisite: MATH 1743 (Calculus and Analytic Geometry II).

1.1 Required Materials

  1. Course Workbook - available from instructor.
  2. Regular access to a computer for submitting homework assignments. While a calculator may be useful at times, you may use your computer as a calculator if you choose.

1.2 Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  1. Apply basic skills for solving:
    • First order differential equations
    • Higher order linear differential equations
    • Systems of linear differential equations
  2. Utilize differential equations in solving problems arising in engineering, natural science, and other fields.

2 Course Format

This course will meet in person. In-person attendance is required.

Your active engagement in class is crucial for your success in this course. To develop the understanding and skills required in this course, your sustained and uninterrupted focus will be required. Due to this, as well as my genuine concern for your learning, any reoccurring interruptions or distractions will be discussed, addressed, and eliminated to any extent necessary.

3 Assessment

Course grades are made up of the following components:

Participation and attendance 10%
Homework 30%
Exam 1 15%
Exam 2 15%
Final Exam 30%
Total 100%

After rounding final grade to the nearest percent:
\(A = 90-100\%, B = 80-89\%, C = 70-79\%, D = 60-69\%, F = \text{below } 60\%\)

Note: You will not have the option to convert your grade to P/NP this semester.

3.1 Participation and Attendance

Class sessions are for engaging new ideas together, solving problems, practicing and testing out new techniques, asking questions, getting help, and helping one another stay motivated, focused, and engaged. Thus, class participation is an essential part of your success in this course and is required. To keep each of us accountable, daily participation points will be awarded each (non-exam) class period as follows:

  • Full points - coming to class on time and actively engaging and participating in class discussion/problem-solving.
  • Half credit - coming to class more than 5 minutes late (-4 points) or remaining only partially engaged in class, doing other things on cell phone/computer (-4 points).
  • No credit - absent or not remaining engaged in class, going on cell phone/computer repeatedly.

Participation scores are aggregated over the semester and converted to the 5% course total.

If something major comes up (a death in the family, illness, hospitalization, etc.) that will cause you to miss more than two cumulative days of class, email me as soon as possible so that we can discuss alternative arrangements.

3.2 Homework

Homework exercises from the course workbook will be assigned daily. Late work will receive a 10% deduction per day past the assigned due date.

Online homework serves as a crucial tool to engage, practice/play with, and assess your understanding of new ideas that are developed in class. Together with your active class participation, giving adequate time to complete online assignments is the best thing you can do to excel in this class.

Homework exercises are assigned every class period (except exam and review days) and are due at the beginning of the next class period. To get the most out of these assignments, it is important that you start these assignments early and leave plenty of time to come back to problems later if you get stuck. (This is called incubation.) In every assignment, you also pose at least two questions about anything you are curious about (1 point/question).

Both inside and outside of class, you are strongly encouraged to work with each other to discuss and help each other to better understand each topic. If you find yourself stuck on a problem after multiple focused attempts on a problem (i.e. working undistracted for at least 5 minutes on a problem), please write the following:

  1. Explanation of what you tried and where you got stuck
  2. Two additional questions regarding the problem or related problems for which the answers may (or may not) help you in solving/proving this particular problem

Then come to class ready to discuss!

Homework is graded out of 20 points, with 10 points for completion (including questions), and 10 points for accuracy of one or two selected problems. To ensure you are able to efficiently and effectively complete homework, you should budget time to begin working on homework problems within 24 hours of every class session.

3.3 Exams

There will be three in-person exams for this course: two midterm exams and a final exam. Exam dates are listed on the Canvas homepage. Please put these dates in your calendar and email me as soon as you find you may have an unavoidable or university-sanctioned conflict with any dates.

3.4 Discussions

Canvas discussion assignments will be periodically used to introduce or explore ideas not covered in class. Please follow Canvas for instructions and due dates. If you receive full credit on all discussions, you may choose to drop your lowest homework score.

4 Course Communication

Be aware and anticipate the following response times for the following types of correspondence:

  • Student –> Instructor: For emails to the instructor sent after 8 am on Monday but before noon on Friday, please allow 24 hours of response time. Messages left after midday Friday may take up to 72 hours. Holidays excluded. Messages sent via email generally will receive quicker responses than messages sent in Canvas.
  • Instructor –> Student: Students are expected to check and be aware of information sent via email and Canvas announcement posts regularly and respond if needed following the same guidelines described in the above item.
  • Student –> Student: When working with other students (e.g. homework or group projects), students are advised to exchange contact information of some sort, as well as check and read email/group messages regularly.

In all course communication with your instructor and classmates, please follow these net etiquette (netiquette) guidelines: 1

  1. Remember the Human: When communicating electronically, whether through email, instant message, discussion post, text, or some other method, practice the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Remember, your written words are read by real people, all deserving of respectful communication. Consider the tone of your emails and discussion posts before you press “send” or “submit.” Ask yourself, “Would I be okay with this if someone else had written it?”
  2. Make yourself look good: In all course communication with your instructor and classmates, be professional and polite. One of the great things about the virtual world is the lack of judgment associated with your physical appearance, the sound of your voice, or the clothes you wear. You will, however, be judged by the quality of your writing, so keep the following tips in mind:
    • Always check for capitalization, spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
    • Think about what you want to communicate and state it clearly.
    • Avoid slang and acronyms like ROTFL for “rolling on the floor laughing.”
    • Don’t use ALL CAPS for entire sentences or posts, which denote yelling at someone. Any form of attack or inappropriate response within any form of communication with other students or faculty is unacceptable and if done in a discussion post will be removed immediately accompanied by a warning.
    • Be pleasant and polite.
  3. Respect other people’s time and bandwidth: Electronic communication takes time: time to read and time in which to respond. Most people today lead busy lives, just like you do, and don’t have time to read or respond to frivolous emails or discussion posts. As a virtual world communicator, it is your responsibility to make sure that the time spent reading your words isn’t wasted. Make your written communication meaningful and to the point, without extraneous text or large attachments that may take forever to download.

5 Other Information

5.1 AI Policy

While the use of the internet and AI is acceptable for brainstorming and generating ideas on a topic, keep in mind that AI-generated results and sources are often made up, and thus must be verified.

Moreover, it is cheating to submit any academic work that originates from another source as your own, including AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Bing, etc.

When the use of AI tools is explicitly permitted on an assignment, all content from AI tools used must be cited as such, following current AI citation styles appropriate to your discipline (MLA, APA, Chicago style).

5.2 Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty in any form is a violation of the Academic Code of Conduct and will not be tolerated. There is a zero-tolerance policy in this course for any form of plagiarism, fabrication, cheating, forgery, or any other type of academic dishonesty. Violations will be addressed one-on-one with the instructor with a report submitted to the Academic Integrity Committee.

For more on the Academic Code of Conduct please see the USAO student handbook.

5.3 Accessibility Policy

The University’s accessibility policy is on page 15 of Equity Policy.

5.4 Disability Services

The University has a continuing commitment to providing accommodations for students with documented disabilities. To fully participate in this class, those with disabilities who may need accommodation should contact Disability Services, as soon as possible. For this semester, please do this by emailing the Disability Services Office at .

5.5 Illness

Regular class attendance is necessary to achieve the course objectives. Thus, taking care of your health and avoiding unnecessary exposure to illness is an important part of your success.

However, if you do fall ill for any reason, I want you to be able to rest. Please do not come to class if you are sick. If you are ill, please email me to let me know. Then, when you are well, contact me ASAP to make plans to make up missed work.

If you are absent from class, you are still responsible for completing all course requirements. As the instructor, I will work with you to make up work. However, it is your responsibility to contact me to make plans for making up missed work as soon as you are well. Do not wait until the end of the semester to make up missed work.

5.6 Important Dates

It is your responsibility to be aware of all dates listed in the USAO academic calendar.

5.7 Course Changes

The instructor reserves the right to make changes to this course as deemed mutually beneficial or necessary to all involved, with appropriate notification.

I encourage any feedback you have at any point during the semester. If you find any structural or content errors in any current course materials, let me know politely and respectfully via the Course Corrections discussion in Canvas, via email, or in person. If you do so, I will give one point extra credit (per correction) toward your homework score.

  1. Partially adapted from The Core Rules of Netiquette. Shea, V. (1994). Netiquette (Online ed., pp. 32-45). San Francisco: Albion Books.↩︎