Please read this syllabus carefully. You will be responsible for all the information given here, and for any modifications to it that may be announced.
Text: The textbook for this course is Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems (4th edition), by C. H. Edwards and D. E. Penney. (Please be aware that if the choice were mine, less expensive textbooks would be used. I have complained about textbook prices for years, with a spectacular lack of effect.)
Instructor: Darryl McCullough, Professor of Mathematics
| Office: | 804 Physical Sciences Center |
| Phone: | 325-2743 |
| Email: | dmccullough at math.ou.edu |
| Office hours: | Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 11:30-12:20, and by appointment. |
Homework: It is absolutely essential to work a large number of problems on a regular basis. Problem assignments will be posted on the course web page. The homework assignments are the bare minimum for most students to gain basic familiarity with the material. As manager of your own education, it is up to you to work whatever additional problems may be necessary for you to master the subject.
You may consult with other students about the homework problems, indeed I encourage you to do so if you find it helpful, but avoid becoming dependent on this. Seeing a few examples will help you get started, and explaining a problem step-by-step to someone else is a great learning device. But you can tell when you are really solving problems on our own and when you are just kidding yourself. Obviously, you need to do a lot of problems on your own to learn the subject, and to handle the quizzes and exams that make up most of the course grade.
This semester I have chosen to use in-class quizzes to measure your progress and to help you stay motivated, rather than having you turn in your written homework. I have used both systems many times, and found that each has advantages and disadvantages. Quizzes give students faster feedback on how they are doing, allow better measurement of performance, serve as practice for answering questions in an exam-taking environment, and require you to stay caught up on the lectures. They have the disadvantage that some students may be tempted to try to save time and energy by gaming the system, just working a few homework problems, or waiting until the night before the quiz to work on them. If you do that you will not learn what you need to. Success in any course, especially a highly sequential subject such as mathematics, requires you to stay caught up.
Getting Help: I will work a lot of homework problems in class, and will take as many requests for them as time allows. For additional help with homework, the lecture material, or any other aspect of how you are doing in the course, come to my office hours, or to make an appointment with me to meet at another time. If my regular office hours do not fit your schedule, I urge you to arrange another time to meet with me. Success for my students is a very high priority with me, and helping my students learn mathematics is a pleasure, not an inconvenience. Email is an efficient way to contact me.
Class Participation: You are expected to attend and participate in all lectures, and are responsible for all information given out during them. You will need to arrive on time for all of the lectures, properly prepared and in good physical condition--- in particular, adequately rested and up to date on the course material so that you can maintain full concentration on the lecture. If you cannot accomplish this, please reenroll in a different class.
There are 25 possible points for class participation, half the value of one in-class exam. For each missed lecture beyond four, your point total will be reduced by five points. Since the average score on an in-class examination is typically around 35 points, seven missed lectures will probably cost you the equivalent of half a test grade, and eleven lectures (achieving a class participation grade of −10) the equivalent of a full exam.
For each lecture fewer than four missed, you will receive a token credit of 1 point. This will almost certainly not affect your grade, but it is something to be proud of.
I have no concept of an “excused” absence--- I assume that you are an intelligent person, so if you are not in class, there must be a very good reason why you could not attend. Any missed lecture will have a detrimental effect on your learning the course material, but you can miss up to four lectures because of academic or personal travel, university-sanctioned activities, illness, transportation breakdown, or whatever, without impacting your point total. Save them in case you need them.
Testing: I expect to give seven in-class quizzes, on Fridays except for the first and last weeks of the semester, the weeks of exams, the weeks immediately after exams, and April 22. The lowest two quizzes will be omitted from the computation of your grade. If you miss a quiz, whatever the reason, it will be one of the dropped ones (unless, of course, you miss more than two, in which case it will count as a zero). There will be three in-class examinations, on February 18, March 25, and April 29. Details about what they will cover will be posted on the course website.
The final examination will be held in the usual lecture room on Thursday, May 12, 8:00 to 10:00 a. m. University regulations require that you take it at that time.
Grading System: Your grade will be based on your point total as follows. There are 300 possible points: 75 for the final examination, 50 for each of the three in-class examinations, 50 for the quizzes, and 25 for class participation. The grades will be assigned by calculating the point total for each student in the class, listing the totals in rank order, and assigning grades according to a reasonable total needed for each letter. After each in-class examination, I will post interim grades, so by the middle of the course you will have a very good idea of where you stand, and what is required for a given grade.
Withdrawal Policy: Until January 31, there is no record of a grade for dropped courses. From February 1 through February 25, the University gives you an automatic W if you withdraw from the course. From Feburary 28 through April 1, the policy is that you receive a W or an F at the instructor's discretion, but I will give you a W if you withdraw, regardless of your performance in the course up to that point. After April 1, University regulations specify that you may withdraw only in “very unusual circumstances,” and only with the permission of the Dean. Avoidance of a low grade is not sufficient reason to obtain permission to withdraw after April 1.
Grade of Incomplete: The grade of “I” is a special-purpose grade given when a specific task needs to be completed to finish the coursework. This is typically a term paper or other special assignment, so rarely makes sense in a mathematics course. An “I” cannot be given to avoid receiving a low grade.
Calculators: This is a course of mathematical ideas and techniques, not a course of mechanical computation. You may use a calculator when working on the homework assignments. In class and when taking exams, a calculator is not really needed, but you may, if you wish, use a simple calculator that does not have graphics capability while taking exams, just to check your arithmetic. The reason for the exclusion of graphics capability to make sure that you have the graphs of the fundamental functions like such as trigonometric, lograrithm, and exponential in your head. Anyone who is not fully comfortable with these functions is not working at the necessary level for this subject. If you don't know them cold, it's time to really learn them.
Non-electronic classroom: The lecture hour is a time for mathematics and nothing else. Apart from the basic calculators already discussed, we will have a completely non-electronic classroom. Not only is the use of electronic devices during class grossly impolite both to me and to your fellow students, but every study shows that students who multitask during class simply don't learn the course material. Before the lecture hour starts, turn off all electronic devices, including laptop computers, cell phones, hand-held computers, whatever. We will work together to learn about differential equations and related mathematics for one microcentury (50 minutes), and after that it will be appropriate to reconnect to the electronic universe.
Academic Misconduct: If cases of academic misconduct arise, they will be dealt with according to University policies. In math classes it's rather obvious what is acceptable conduct and what is not, but just to make sure you understand the policies, you should be familiar with the OU Student's Guide to Academic Integrity. There's really no way that any misconduct could be worth the risk, so just don't go there. As in the rest of life, totally ethical behavior is always the smart choice in the long run.
Students with Disabilities: The following is the University's Reasonable Accomodation Policy: The University of Oklahoma is committed to providing reasonable accomodation for all students with disabilities. Students with disabilities who require accomodations in this course are requested to speak with the professor as early in the semester as possible. Students with disabilities must be registered with the Office of Disability Services prior to receiving accomodations in this course. The Office of Disability Services is located in Goddard Health Center, Suite 166, phone 405/325-3852 or TDD only 405/325-4173.
Final Grades: Grades will be posted on our course website as soon as they are available. You may pick up your graded final exam from me any time within one year of the end of the course, after one year they will be discarded.
Advice: You are a very intelligent and mathematically talented person, or you wouldn't be here. Math is not easy, for me or for anyone else, but everyone in this class is fully capable of learning this subject. Still, not everyone knows how to maximize the return they get from the time and energy that they put into this course. Over the years, I have found the following to be the most useful advice.
Do math daily or almost daily. Here are three good reasons: 1) The brain can only assimilate a certain amount of math in one day--- you will learn much more in two hours a day for seven days than in seven hours a day for two days. 2) When you don't work on something regularly, you have to invest effort just to get caught up to where you were. 3) If you are not completely caught up, you will not get nearly as much out of the lectures.
Working problems is your most important learning technique. Work problems from the book a few at a time, starting with easy ones of different kinds and going back to harder ones in later sessions, and do not wait until you have completely finished one section before starting on the problems from later sections. Work sessions with fellow students can be very productive, as long as one avoids the pitfall of becoming dependent on others. Writing up the problems carefully and completely, in your own words, will give you a much deeper understanding and better retention than just convincing yourself that you get the idea. Work extra problems if you need to--- the problem assignments will be minimal and not sufficient for every student to learn every particular topic.
Learn the definitions immediately. It's hard enough to absorb math ideas when you know what the words mean. If you don't even know their meanings, there is no possibility of learning taking place.
Pay attention to correct notation and use it at all times. Sloppy, imprecise notation reflects sloppy thinking and lack of understanding. If you don't use correct notation when doing your homework, you won't suddenly start using it when you are taking an exam. For the record, I take points off for writing things that don't make sense, whether you “had the right idea” or not.
Always be aware of the type of mathematical object you are thinking about (is it a number, a set, a variable, an equation, an identity, a function, a vector, a vector space, a power series, a Kleinian group, a Banach space, a de Rham cohomology class, etc.?). If you are not clear about the type of object you are working with, then you are lost and need to backtrack until you are reoriented.
Learn the language. Beyond just knowing the types of objects, learn the terminology and call things what they are--- integral, derivative, vector-valued function, set, or whatever. Use the math words like implies, evaluate, equality, identity, definition, and so on, and use them accurately. Write them down when you are doing homework and speak them aloud. The key is to get the math happening in your head, and the language is a major enabler of that process.
The bottom line: Stay caught up. Learn the language, use good mathematical notation, and always know the type of object you are thinking about. Live with differential equations.