APMA 2130

Dorning is one of the best professors in the E-School. His lectures tend to stress theorems and general methods over examples, which is great for an ODEs course, where it's vital to know why things work in certain cases. He also stresses vocabulary, which is odd for some people, but it helps in characterizing problems later in the course. The homework sets aren't bad at all if you pay attention in lecture, and they're written only, which is much nicer than WebWork. He likes to say that you need to do the reading outside of class but it's not at all necessary if you pay attention. Quizzes are weekly but not hard, usually a problem that was featured on the previous week's homework. The tests are comprehensive but also fair. The averages for each test in the class were above 90%, so nobody really struggled during the semester.
Another great reason to take his class is he'll let you into his Chaos Theory classes (APMA 6548 and 7548) which are very interesting and really easy As.
Don't use your phone in lecture. He will kick you out. Pay attention and you'll do fine.

Dorning is a super knowledgeable prof- but that becomes a problem occasionally since his lecturing style teaches at such a high level that's not dumbed down at all, making it hard for lots of us to follow him in class. For the most part I learned the material through doing the homework. Speaking of the homework, you'll easily have twice as much as the other 2130 classes. Tests are HARD.

He definitely means well to his students and is a great character! However his teaching style didn't work for me at all, and I definitely recommend that you make sure you can keep up in his class since it gets difficult past the first test very quickly.

First of all, let me make it clear that Dorning is the best DiffEQ Professor and maybe even the best Mathematics professor in the engineering school. If you think you can just walk in Diffeq for an easy A, you're wrong. You'll never find an easy Diffeq course. Dorning teaches the material very well. He's a great lecturer, knows his shit, and he tries to make the class enjoyable. The way he explains/does everything is just funny and sometimes dumb-funny. It's great.
His teaching style is very old school. He doesn't allow phones/electronics (you'll get kicked out), he'll call you out if you're sleeping (one time he threw chalk at someone. it was hilarious.), he uses a chalk board, and all his homework is from the textbook. Don't work on anything in his class. You should have out only a notebook and a pencil to take notes. My advice: write down EVERYTHING he writes on the board. WORD FOR WORD. I promise it'll pay off!! Even if that's not your style.... do it!
As for tests...I wouldn't necessarily say this is a bad thing.... but his exams can be difficult. His homework is pretty difficult and takes 7-9 hours on average (about 3-5 hours towards the end of the year). His quizzes are straight forward. (only problem is you have 10-15 minutes, which rushes you). His tests are very difficult. I don't think it's something I can complain about because he's such a good professor. I would say the tests are the same difficulty as the homework.... but realize that the homework is really difficult as well. The great thing about tests is that you have up to 3 hours... which is PLENTY of time to finish and check your answers.

Overall, you learn so much from his class. He teaches the material better than any other professor. If you want to REALLY LEARN Differential Equations, take it with Dorning. If it's applicable for your major, I suggest you take it with Dorning so you learn Diffeq the right way. If you enjoy math, you'll love Dorning. If you just want to get math over with, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Oh. The class is also curved. (so just try to get above average on the tests)

Success in this class really depends on your learning style. Dorning is a very sweet old man and can be hilarious at times, but he is extremely old and you can tell this in his teaching style. He pretty much only teaches by theory and rarely, if ever, does useful examples in class which makes the homework very difficult to do. If you normally read your math textbook or are naturally good at comprehending math, you should be ok in this class. However, if you need to see examples and learn by watching the processes of problems being worked out like I do, you will probably find this course pretty challenging. I honestly barely ever knew what was going on in lecture and pretty much taught the entire class to myself by looking stuff up on the internet because the textbook sucks. Also, if you like doing your homework on websites i.e. webwork, don't take this class with Dorning. All of his homework has to be turned in on paper, so you don't really know if you've done the problem right or not, and it is much longer than the other professor's webwork.

Overall, if you are naturally good at math and hardworking kid and want to watch a quirky old man get way too excited about differential equations and Harry Potter, take this class with Dorning. Otherwise I would consider other options.

Dorning is a great professor. He is super passionate about the subject, and you can just tell he is an extremely intelligent and accomplished man. He is, however, a very traditional and no-nonsense kind of guy, so no electronics or dozing off in class or you will get kicked/called out! Also, he tends to emphasize theorems and proofs during lecture (he will literally spend the entire class on a proving some obscure theorem that isn't really useful), which is not that bad because it gives you a deep understanding of the material; however, it doesn't help much with solving problems, so I'm not sure that style of teaching is suitable for everyone. He does try to make diff eq relevant and constantly emphasizes how important it is to real-life careers, which is kind of motivational even though his anecdotes are sometimes just weird and out of nowhere.

The content itself isn't too difficult, it's just that there is so much of it that it's hard to stay on top of it. The tests are fairly straightforward - not too difficult to get at least a B, although I suspect our tests were harder than other professors' and our grading was also pretty strict. The homeworks, though, were extremely long (many took upwards of 10 hours) and excruciatingly painful. I just ended up completely Chegging my way through them by the end. Plus a lot of the homework problems were so long that they didn't help us prepare for the tests at all because there was no chance of it actually showing up on the test.

I highly recommend this class if you like math and/or want a solid understanding of differential equations, but if you're just looking to get a math requirement out of the way, you may or may not enjoy this class. For me, it ended up being a very "meh" kind of class - not too difficult, interesting-ish material, but a whole lot of work.

Professor Dorning is the hardest ODE professor (hardest tests and by far the most HW) but he gave my class a fairly substantial curve. You will probably learn DiffEq best with Dorning and have the greatest likelihood at an A or A-, but at the cost of about double the homework of any of the other sections. Quizzes are easy but very rushed...you must know your stuff. Tests (especially the first one) can be tricky but he does give you 3+ hours so there's ample time to check your work. He is a very fair professor...just SO MUCH WORK.

Dorning gave huge weekly homework assignments but if you actually tried on them, they were super helpful. There are weekly quizzes that require you to review your notes and can be pretty tough. The class is curved so you just need to beat the average a little to do well. Test averages were around 80-83.

Professor Dorning is an excellent teacher. He explains concepts well and answers questions with clarity. He is organized and methodical in his teaching style, and that worked well for me. He does a lot of proofs in class, some of which are helpful, some are useless. His exams are always significantly more difficult than the other sections, but his students are, in general, more prepared for the exams than those in other sections due to Dorning's teaching style. I would recommend that class to anyone.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. TAKE IT WITH ANYONE ELSE. This class was the bane of my existence. Weekly textbook hw and weekly quizzes (which are timed and very difficult) were made even more difficult by the fact that nobody knew what was going on. The textbook has very few worked out examples (and sometimes no examples at all) to go by, since it spends 90% of the time showing you the derivation of a formula. This would be fine, except this is the EXACT SAME FORMAT as class. Professor Dorning would spend 45 minutes of class working out the derivation down the last detail, and his handwriting (he only does notes on the chalkboard) was practically illegible most of the time. I wish he would have done more worked out examples, or found a better textbook (or had any online lecture slides at all!), because I couldn’t find any good sources online as a supplement. Tests were also hella hard.
Just do yourself a favor and take this class with anyone else.

Amazing professor. He is very knowledgeable about the material and explains the general concepts so you can apply them to any problem. His teaching style is definitely not for everyone though, and the large amount of homework makes the three-hour exams seem significantly easier. I would strongly recommend him to anyone who is passionate and interested in math; if you need to go slower and want professors who work out lots of practice problems, take it with anyone else.