Michigan Calculus Classroom, early 90s Editors’ note: This is the second of a series of blog posts on the state and history of the University of Michigan’s undergraduate mathematics program. Calculus reform came to Michigan in the early 1990s—closing in on 25 years ago. So this is another installment in a “25 year retrospective.” “…Don’t […]
25 Years: What (Good) Teaching Looks Like Read More »
Last Fall, I took over our “Applied Linear Algebra” course. This course is targeted at an audience majoring primarily in either electrical engineering and computer science or else in industrial and operations engineering. I’m not an applied mathematician myself, but I really wanted to get nontrivial applications of Linear Algebra into the curriculum. We did
Some linear algebra application ideas Read More »
Confusion is traditionally an unwelcome guest in the classroom. It is a problem that the conscientious instructor needs to root out with clear explanations, and if students harbor it we expect bad things to follow. Recently, however, its reputation has been changing. In August, The Chronicle published an article titled “Confuse Students to Help Them
Promoting confusion… and its resolution Read More »
This year, as I have for a while, I had the pleasure of working with our new instructor training program in the last week of August. And this year, as I have for a while, I found it to be the effort of the semester in condensed form. This week runs at an entirely different
The Storm Before the Calm Read More »
In July I teach a class in the Michigan Math and Science Scholars summer camp. The camp is for advanced high school students who are interested enough to give up 2 weeks of their summer to learn some math and science. For the last 9 years I’ve taught a class called Math and the Internet,
