Approaching the midterm
I am really enjoying the Lebl book -- there is no teacher solution, but when I was stuck on a problem, a quick email to the author got resolution. I used the Schaums book for that section. I really like the way the Lebl book handles homogeneous second-order linear ODEs as well as undetermined coefficients. The exercises are paired nicely with this section.
Monday I will teach Variation of Parameters and Thursday's class will be using MATLAB. Students already did an Excel assignment to implement Euler's method. Now they will be using MATLAB to do the same.
Getting back to modeling... the two-day midterm is next week. I will assign a modeling project dealing with mechanical vibrations to be turned the next week (while I am grading exams - they should be working too :-) ). I'll be looking for a good modeling project on Simiode (if anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them!).
Overall, I am glad we've committed to the open source book. It's a nice, solid book.