We’ll use this page to keep track of what has happened each day in class. It won’t contain any of the nitty-gritty details, but will instead serve to summarize what has transpired each day.

## Week 1

• Monday, August 27: Our first day! Dana attempted to learn names and then spent some time discussing the syllabus and course expectations. With the remaining time, students began working in groups on Are You Ready for Calculus? (PDF). While the students were working, Dana walked around and personally greeting students.
• Wednesday, August 29: After Dana attempted to learn names again, the students continued working on Are You Ready for Calculus? (PDF). During this time, Dana wandered the room answering questions and gathered a list of problems that students seemed to be struggling with. For the last 15 minutes of class, Dana presented some of the problems that were causing the most issues.
• Thursday, August 30: Class started with students working in small groups on the second half of Are You Ready for Calculus? (PDF). During the last 15-20 minutes, a few students volunteered to present problems, and we finished class by discussing the work that the volunteers presented. Yay, our first day of student presentations! I was impressed.
• Friday, August 31: Dana spent nearly the entire class session lecturing on the first half of Chapter 1 of the course packet.

## Week 2

• Monday, September 3: Labor Day, no class!
• Wednesday, September 5: We finished up the rest of Chapter 1.
• Thursday, September 6: Using some skeleton notes, Dana covered Section 2.1, which introduces average rate of change. Next, the students worked on some exercises from Section 2.2. The goal of Section 2.2 is to develop intuition about rates of change.
• Friday, September 7: We spent the first half of class discussing problems from Weekly Homework 2. For the second half of class, we covered Section 2.3: Intuitive derivative (PDF).

## Week 3

• Monday, September 10: Today we introduced the concept of limits and covered Section 2.4: Limits (Part 1) (PDF).
• Wednesday, September 12: We spent the first 30 minutes finishing up Section 2.4 on limits. Students presented solutions to Weekly Homework 3 (PDF) for the remainder of class.
• Thursday, September 13: We covered Section 2.6: Limit rules (PDF). Note: We’ll come back to Section 2.5 tomorrow.
• Friday, September 14: After answering a few quick homework questions, we discussed the Squeeze Theorem, which was our last remaining item from Section 2.4. After that, we covered Section 2.5: Continuity.

## Week 4

• Monday, September 17: We spent the entire class session covering Section 2.7: Some basic derivatives (PDF), which officially introduced the limit definition of the derivative.
• Wednesday, September 19: After a quick discussion of Section 2.8: Local linearization, students presented problems from Weekly Homework 4 (PDF) for the remainder of class.
• Thursday, September 20: We spent the day reviewing for Exam 1.
• Friday, September 21: Students took Exam 1.

## Week 5

• Monday, September 24: We covered Section 3.1: Power Rule and Section 3.2: Derivatives of linear combinations (PDF), which introduced our first batch of shortcuts for finding derivatives.
• Wednesday, September 26: Today we handed back Exam 1 and discussed Section 3.4: Derivatives of products and quotients.
• Thursday, September 27: The class session was devoted to covering Section 3.3: Derivatives of compositions, which introduced the Chain Rule.
• Friday, September 28: An action-packed day! We spent some time discussing homework problems related to the chain rule and then covered both Section 3.5: Natural base $e$ and Section 3.6: Derivatives of log functions.

## Week 6

• Monday, October 1: We spent the first half of the class session discussing homework problems related to derivatives of log functions. After that, we covered Section 3.6: Derivatives of exponential functions.
• Wednesday, October 3: We spent the entire class session having students present solutions to the problems from Weekly Homework 5 (PDF).
• Thursday, October 4: After answering a few quick questions on the homework involving derivatives of exponential functions, Dana covered Section 3.8: Derivatives of trigonometric functions.
• Friday, October 5: Dana lectured (very passionately!) over Section 4.5: Implicit differentiation.

## Week 7

• Monday, October 8: As usual, we started by discussing a couple of homework problems. After that we covered Section 3.10: Derivatives of inverse trigonometric functions.
• Wednesday, October 10: After some announcements, we tackled a few homework problems involving inverse trig functions. Then we quickly covered Section 3.11: Log Trick. The last 15 minutes were spent on students taking the first (and hopefully only) Gateway Quiz.
• Thursday, October 11: We spent the day reviewing for Exam 2.
• Friday, October 12: Students took Exam 2.

## Week 8

• Monday, October 15: Since we had an exam on Friday last week, we didn’t need to discuss any homework problems. Instead we dove right into Section 4.1: L’Hospital’s rule, which is a tool for evaluating limits involving certain indeterminate forms.
• Wednesday, October 17: The first half of class was spent discussing a few homework problems involving L’Hospital’s Rule. Then we blasted through content from Sections 2.9, 2.10, 2.11, and the first half of 4.2. Some of the topics discussed included: increasing/decreasing, contant, critical numbers, First Derivative Test, concavity, and Second Derivative Test.
• Thursday, October 18: After answering a few homework questions, we spent the rest of class covering the remaining parts of Section 4.2: Function analysis (PDF).
• Friday, October 19: Today, we spent the first half of class having students present their solutions to sketching graphs by hand. After that, we started discussing Section 4.4: Optimization. We’ll wrap up the topic of optimization next week.

## Week 9

• Monday, October 22: The majority of class time was spent on Section 4.4: Optimization (part 2) (PDF). This section involves applied problems where we need to maximize or minimize some quantity.
• Wednesday, October 24: After discussing a couple of applied optimization problems, we dove into Section 4.7: Related Rates. Dana discussed 4 different examples.
• Thursday, October 25: Class began with Dana doing one more related rates example and then students volunteered to present problems from Weekly Homework 7 (PDF).
• Friday, October 26: Dana was out of town, so we had a substitute in both sections. The substitute answered a few homework questions about related rates and then covered Section 4.8: Mean Value Theorem.

## Week 10

• Monday, October 28: Class started with a quick review of the Mean Value Theorem, which was followed by answering a couple homework questions. With the remaining class time, we discussed Section 4.3: Hyperbolic functions (PDF).
• Wednesday, October 31: Happy Halloween! After answering some quick homework questions on hyperbolic functions, the class set to work on some additional problems (PDF) to study for Exam 3.
• Thursday, November 1: We spent the day reviewing and discussing Weekly Homework 8 (PDF).
• Friday, November 2: Students took Exam 3.

## Week 11

• Monday, November 5: Today we began Chapter 5, which introduces the integral. In particular, we covered Section 5.1: Intuitive definite integral as signed area.
• Wednesday, November 7: After an attempt at a pep talk, Dana answered a few questions from the homework. The rest of the class session was spent discussing the problems on last week’s exam. We covered all but the last few problems.
• Thursday, November 8: We spent most of the class period covering the first half of Section 5.2: Riemann sums.
• Friday, November 9: Dana was out sick. Class was cancelled.

## Week 12

• Monday, November 12: Veteran’s Day. No class
• Wednesday, November 14: We finished covering Section 5.2: Riemann Sums, which introduced the formal definition of a definite integral as a limit of Riemann sums.
• Thursday, November 15: Dana covered one more example of computing a definite integral using limits of Riemann sums. After that, the students worked on and presented problems from Weekly Homework 9 (PDF).
• Friday, November 16: After answering questions on the homework due involving limits of Riemann sums, Dana covered Section 5.5: Indefinite integral (PDF).

## Week 13

• Monday, November 19: Important day today! We began class by discussing a few homework questions about indefinite integrals. Then Dana introduced the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, which is the crowning achievement of calculus. The FTC tells us how definite and indefinite integrals are related. All of this came from Section 5.3: The fundamental theorem (PDF).
• Wednesday, November 21: We covered Section 5.4: Another fundamental theorem (PDF), which establishes an inverse relationship between derivatives and integrals.
• Thursday, November 22: Thanksgiving Break. No class.
• Friday, November 23: Thanksgiving Break. No class.

## Week 14

• Monday, November 19: Today we covered Section 5.6: Substitution (PDF), which introduces a technique for integrating many functions that are products, quotients, and/or compositions.
• Wednesday, November 21: After a few questions on the homework involving substitution, we discussed Section 5.7: Integration by parts (PDF)
• Thursday, November 22: We spent the class period reviewing for Exam 4 and discussing Weekly Homework 10 (PDF).
• Friday, November 23: Students took Exam 4.

## Week 15

• Monday, December 3: We discussed Section 6.1: Falling objects (PDF)
• Wednesday, December 5: We spent most of the class session discussing the homework from Section 6.1.
• Thursday, December 6: We reviewed for the Final Exam.
• Friday, December 7: We reviewed for the Final Exam.