Submitted by ambrojio on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 1:10pm.
I am in complete agreement. I have long been a proponent of so-called problem based learning, and the use of more research, collaboration and applicability.
My first semester of college calculus (at Kenyon) was fantastic. Normally, calculus is a semester or more of rote learning of equations and formulae; then, at some high level, you get to apply them situationally. Calculus is actually incredibly cool, and is finally all about how math gets used in the real world. But most people just get freaked by the difficult math at the beginning. In THIS course, however, the very first day we were presented with a "briefing" by the CDC about an outbreak of influenza in a small town. Our job? Keep it from spreading. And the first half of the semester was on this one problem; at first, the vectors were very simple, and the equations we learned accordingly simple. But by the end of the semester we were all doing actual calculus and plotting disease vectors. It was amazing!
Spot On
I am in complete agreement. I have long been a proponent of so-called problem based learning, and the use of more research, collaboration and applicability.
My first semester of college calculus (at Kenyon) was fantastic. Normally, calculus is a semester or more of rote learning of equations and formulae; then, at some high level, you get to apply them situationally. Calculus is actually incredibly cool, and is finally all about how math gets used in the real world. But most people just get freaked by the difficult math at the beginning. In THIS course, however, the very first day we were presented with a "briefing" by the CDC about an outbreak of influenza in a small town. Our job? Keep it from spreading. And the first half of the semester was on this one problem; at first, the vectors were very simple, and the equations we learned accordingly simple. But by the end of the semester we were all doing actual calculus and plotting disease vectors. It was amazing!