Let me remind you to keep working on the real final exam; you have until the beginning of May to complete the final exam.

Also, five faculty at Ohio State are starting a new English writing MOOC; it is called Writing II: Rhetorical Composing. They've created a space for you to practice writing and reviewing others' writing called WExMOOC, which was built using some pieces of mooculus. This class will include a series of interactive reading, research, and composition activities, along with a pretty cool dashboard to let you know how you rank among your peers in the class. You can check out the course at http://go.osu.edu/writing2 and it starts today, April 22.

This is the last week of our journey. We finish by sampling a few applications of integration, including some area calculations, some arc length calculations, but mostly volume calculations. To get started on Week 15, click on Start Here.

The final exam is available today: you have until the beginning of May to finish it. It emphasizes core concepts from the course.

If you have questions about the course, about the exam, about mathematics in general, we can talk in the forum or during office hours; office hours will be April 19 at 11:30AM EDT in our Google Hangout.

And it's sad that this is the end. But let me simply say this: it has been my honor and my pleasure to be one of your many guides through mathematics. I've had a ton of fun putting this together, and I very much look forward to more. Thank you!

I'll write again in May.

This is the penultimate week: the journey we began a few months ago finishes after next week. And we'll finish our journey with a few applications of integration, but we're not quite ready to finish yet! This week, before those applications, we study a few more techniques of integration, beyond u-substitution, the chain rule in reverse. This week starts with the product rule in reverse, usually called integration by parts. We'll also look at some trigonometric identities and long division. To get started on Week 14, click on Start Here.

The final exam is coming out soon, and let me reassure you: the final exam will be multiple choice, and designed to test your knowledge of core ideas in the course.

If you have questions about anything covered thus far in the course, please start a discussion in the forum or talk about it during office hours; we'll be holding office hours on April 11 at 4:30PM EDT in our Google Hangout.

Differentiating, with practice, becomes a mechanical process: once you know the rules, you can take derivatives by applying those rules carefully. In wonderful contrast, integration (which, in the light of the Fantastic Theorem of Calculus, amounts to antidifferentiation) is an inspired process: there's tricks, surprises, insights, creativity—and, like a thrilling tale, no guarantee of success! This week, we'll learn a particularly powerful technique for antidifferentiating: u-substitution, which is just the chain rule in reverse. To get started on Week 13, click on Start Here.

And you've got a couple more days to finish up the second midterm; please write something on the forum, if only a triumphant “I did it!” I know you can make it!

Finally, we'll have office hours on April 3 at 1:30PM EDT in our Google Hangout.

People knew about areas before Newton and Leibniz, and people knew about slopes of tangent lines—so in what sense did Newton or Leibniz “discover” calculus? For starters, they are credited with the “fundamental theorem of calculus,” which relates antidifferentiation (our task during Week 10) and integration (our task during Week 11). We'll be seeing the fundamental theorem of calculus from a variety of perspectives this week, in Week 12; to get started on the fundamental theorem, click on Start Here. You'll be amazed at how much easier the fundamental theorem of calculus makes area calculations!

You've still got time to work on the second midterm and we are available to help you with the exam questions, so if you have any questions at all, please feel free to write something on the forum. I know you can do it! And if you want to talk in person, come to office hours: this week we'll have office hours on March 29 at 10:30AM EDT in our Google Hangout.

For the past couple months, every week we have done some differentiation; last week, we antidifferentiated, but even when doing backflips, derivatives were the star of the show. This week is a change: instead of rates of change, we study area, by which I mean, we begin studying the integral. To get started, click on Start Here. This week emphasizes definitions, and next week, in Week 12, we'll learn how the “fundamental theorem of calculus” combines the antiderivatives from Week 10 with the integrals from Week 11.

There are still two weeks to work on the second midterm; the fake midterm is quite a bit harder, but both midterms are difficult. The fake midterm, for instance, includes questions which force you to do an optimization problem, which then leads naturally into something you can approximate numerically via Newton's method, or you set up a related rates problem, and then you find that the derivative of something is a constant, which then makes you to think about antiderivatives. These kinds of questions—which combine topics from multiple weeks—really are very hard, because multiple insights are necessary to solve them.

If you have any questions on the midterms, if you're stuck, if you're excited about how you've solved a problem and want to share, if you just want to vent, please post to the forum. We're going to all make it past the finish line, but we need to work together. Another opportunity for discussion will be office hours this week on March 20, 12:30PM EDT in our Google Hangout.

The big news this week is our second midterm emphasizing the material that we have covered since our first midterm. But there's some new material, too: click on Start Here to see the outline for this week, Week 10, covering antidifferentiation. Antidifferentiation means untaking derivatives, differentiating in reverse, finding a function whose derivative is a given function. This new material is a sort of bridge between what we've already done—namely, differentiation—and what we're going to do—namely, integration; when crossing a bridge, we often don't know how wonderful the other side is until we actually make it to the other side, so I likewise expect antidifferentiation will seem a bit out of place for a couple weeks. And to make matters more exciting, the finding of antiderivatives is quite challenging, so I hope you enjoy the challenge!

As is our custom, we will hold office hours this week on March 15, 3:30PM EST in our Google Hangout.

I hope you have a lovely Pi day this week, and I wish you every success on the midterm.

We've done a bunch of word problems: this week, we step away from word problems, and consider some of the numerical issues that calculus raises. Click on Start Here to see the outline for Week 9, which includes linear approximations, Newton's method, Euler method, and the Mean Value Theorem. When I first took calculus, I found numbers somewhat tiresome, but I feel differently now! The tools this week will let us approximate the natural logarithm of two, the constant e, and roots of "unsolvable" quintic polynomials, all of which I think is pretty neat.

Next week, in Week 10, we'll do antidifferentiation—where we try to undo everything we've inflicted upon you! Week 10 is the bridge between differentiation and integration, which is how we'll finish out the course.

As is our custom, we will hold office hours this week on March 7, 2:30PM EST in our Google Hangout; we had additional technical difficulties, so I've scheduled extra time for the Office Hours this week and in the future. I'm looking forward to talking with you again!

Calculus is all about how things change, so how is it that calculus can locate a maximum value or a minimum value? Click on Start Here to see the outline for Week 8, which is all about answering that very conundrum: we're going to use calculus—and by studying how the input affects the output—we're going to solve optimization problems. Next week, in Week 9, we'll see yet more applications of the derivative.

We'll run office hours this week on Wednesday, February 27 at 11:30AM EST in our Google Hangout; we had some technical difficulties last time with the Google Hangout, but I think if you log into Google+ first, it should work.

We're starting Week 7 of Calculus One; click on Start Here to see the outline for Week 7. if you have been wondering why we've bothered to compute so many derivatives, this week we start applications of the derivative; we'll see even more (and better!) applications in Weeks 8 and 9.

We'll run office hours this week on Thursday, February 21 at 3:30PM EST in our Google Hangout; I know that things are getting complicated, but we want you to succeed in this course, so if there's anything we can do, please let us know. You can make it!

We have two goals this week: l'Hôpital's rule and related rates. “L'Hôpital's rule” lets us evaluate certain limits by using derivatives, and “related rates” lets us see how one thing's rate of change might affect how fast something else is changing. It'll be fun!

We're starting Week 6 of Calculus One; if you felt confused by the chain rule and inverse functions from Week 5, do not fear: we're going to get tons more chances to dive into the chain rule as the course progresses. We can also talk about any questions you have in our Google Hangout office hours on Friday, February 15 at 10:30 AM EST; we are here to help you succeed! It takes time to absorb this material, but we can make it through together.

Our goal for this week, Week 6, is to differentiate more transcendental functions. Click on Start Here to see the outline for Week 6. At the end of this week is our first midterm.

Next week is Week 7, which means applications; if you've been wondering what all this stuff is good for, the applications in Week 7 and the optimization problems in Week 8 will be highly satisfying.

We're on Week 5 of Calculus One; it was just about a month ago that we started our journey together, and you've done a bunch of calculus already. Our goal this week is the chain rule, which we'll use to differentiate compositions of functions. Click on Start Here to see the outline for Week 5.

This week, we'll meet for office hours in a Google Hangout on Tuesday, February 5 at 5:30 PM EST; if there are particular times during the day which would be better for you, let me know. If you aren't in my Google+ Circle for Office Hours but would like an invite, please post with your email in the forum so I can add you.

After this week, we consider the derivatives of transcendental functions, and the week after that we look at applications, so if you're aching to see what all this stuff is good for, hang in there!

It is Week 4 of Calculus One, otherwise known as the second derivative week. Click on Start Here to see the outline for Week 4. Our goals this week are both to do more calculations (with the product rule and quotient rule) and to dig a bit deeper into the meaning of derivatives (by considering extreme values and, yes, the derivative of the derivative).

As is our custom, we'll get together for office hours in a Google Hangout; the next will be Thursday, January 31 at 9:30 AM EST. If you'd like to be invited or if you have a question you'd like to see discussed, please post in the forum. And if you have ideas on how to improve Office Hours—or any other aspect of the course—please let me know. The success of the course depends on you and your excellent feedback. Thank you!

The second week of Calculus One starts right now; click on Start Here to see the outline for the current week. If you found Week 1 confusing, I think you'll find Week 2 to be clearer.

And thank you so much for all your work: I've enjoyed all our conversations on the forum, and your feedback has taught me more about how best to run an online course like this. We'll keep working to implement all the changes you've suggested. If there's anything we can do to help you learn calculus, please, let us know.

I'm going to hold a weekly office hour in a Google Hangout; the first will be Friday, January 18 at 1:30 PM EST. Only a handful of people can be invited to a Google Hangout, so if you'd like to be invited, please post a question you'd like to ask in the Office Hours forum.

Calculus One begins right now, so it is time to start! Watch the first lecture on the course website at https://class.coursera.org/calc1-001/class.

Calculus is very old, but this is a very new way of presenting it. By taking calculus out of the classroom, we'll demonstrate applications of calculus that would be hard to do in front of a traditional blackboard. And since this is online, you'll be able to interact with the graphs, get instant feedback on your work, and discuss mathematics with others in the forum.

There might be some bumps along the way, but I'm excited to have you partnering with us. And please remember to fill out the Getting to Know You survey: this will provide information for us to tailor the course to you, so you can participate fully and succeed at calculus.

Thank you,
~jim

I'm so glad that you're enrolled in Calculus One. It is almost—but not quite—time to begin: you will be able to access the course website starting Monday, January 7, 2013 at

• 6:00 AM Pacific Standard Time (UTC–8), which is
• 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time (UTC–5), which is
• 1400 UTC.

Since we have just a few days before the course begins, now is a perfect time to invite your friends to join us, too. If they haven't already enrolled, send your friends to https://www.coursera.org/course/calc1 so they can enroll in Calculus One.

Excited to begin our time together,
~jim