Conveners
Interdisciplinary curriculum development at the interface of mathematics, life science, and computing: challenges and progress: Part A
- Carrie Diaz Eaton (Bates College, USA)
Interdisciplinary curriculum development at the interface of mathematics, life science, and computing: challenges and progress: Part B
- Carrie Diaz Eaton (Bates College, USA)
Student progress in “interdisciplinary (ID) thinking” is remarkably resistant to many established means of evaluation. A sophisticated skill, such thinking does not fit well into old instruments, like timed exams. In contrast to discipline-specific skill sets, a student’s ability to view problems from multiple-disciplinary perspectives cannot be evaluated in terms of an objective standard,...
There are many benefits to incorporating coding into mathematics classrooms: students begin to think algorithmically about mathematics, students learn a transferable skill, and the courses can include more real-world, data-driven problems. However, bringing programming into the math curriculum presents challenges. Success and difficulties of integrating programming into the liberal arts...
Although many of the most important academic problems lie at the interface of traditional disciplines, undergraduate students are rarely exposed to true interdisciplinary learning in their courses. Indeed, despite the necessity for mathematical and computational skills in modern biological and environmental research, most life science students lack any experience with higher-level mathematics...
In this talk I will describe a series of population modelling computer labs used in an applied calculus class. The labs showcase different types of population growth, including Fibonacci, exponential, and logistic. Exponential growth is revisited as a differential equation, which is approximated by discrete growth, that is, approximation via tangent lines, using different time intervals. In...
Modelling with real data in the classroom not only gives students a sense of why the mathematics matters, but it also gives them perspective on how messy the real world is and how we adapt our models to suit non-perfect data. We present a class activity and project for an introductory numerical methods course in which Calculus 1 and 2 are prerequisites. In the classroom we introduce curvature...
Since the publication of the National Research Council's Report BIO2010, efforts have increased to better integrate mathematics and biology at the undergraduate level. Unfortunately, similar efforts to introduce quantitative biology at the secondary level have been seldom. This can lead to quantitative achievement mismatch in students from different secondary backgrounds. We believe that...