DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTATIONAL MODULES FOR MATHEMATICS COURSES
INTRODUCTION
To educate students of mathematics in the intelligent use of
computers as a tool, the UCSD Mathematics Department is introducing
computing components into some courses. This initiative requires
extensive development of new instructional computing modules.
INTEL: To assist this effort, through its Technology for Education
2000 program, INTEL generously donated
some desktop computer systems to the Mathematics Department to be used in the
development and testing of innovative
instructional computing components for appropriate undergraduate and
graduate Mathematics courses. To encourage the creative use of
computing in graduate education
and research, and the development of associated software, faculty and
graduate students conducting research involving computational components
are also encouraged to use these computer systems.
The Mathematics Department is also a member of a group of departments that
uses a Shared Curriculum Implementation Lab for the testing
of computer modules in courses. The computer systems for this lab were
donated by INTEL.
GENCORP FOUNDATION OF AEROJET:
The programming for modules to be used in the
courses Math 161, 286 and
294 was done by graduate student David
Glickenstein under the supervision of Professors Michael
Sharpe and Ruth Williams. This development work was
made possible
through a generous contribution to the UCSD Mathematics Department from the
GenCorp Foundation of Aerojet.
SOME RELATED WEB SITES
GENERAL
INTEL Technology for Education 2000 at UCSD (Campus-wide web site)
COURSES
Math 21C (Spring 1999), Calculus and Analytic Geometry for Science and Engineering
In
this undergraduate course taught in Spring 1999 by Professor R. J. Williams,
the students are encouraged to use
Mathematica or Matlab for visualization of
curves and surfaces in three dimensions. The shared INTEL lab (which has
Mathematica installed) is being used by those students
wishing to use Mathematica. In future years, both
Mathematica and Matlab will be available in the shared INTEL lab.
Math 161,
An Introduction to Mathematical Computing
This undergraduate course provides
an introduction for mathematics majors to the use of
Mathematica as a computational tool. Various Mathematica modules have been
developed and tested
for this course which will use the shared INTEL lab in future years.
Math 168A, Numerical Methods in Mathematical Finance. This undergraduate course
uses the INTEL shared lab and makes extensive use of Mathematica, Excel,
and web access
on the INTEL machines.
Math 286,
Stochastic Differential Equations
This graduate level course uses
computer modules for performing symbolic manipulations in stochastic
calculus and for numerically approximating the solutions of stochastic differential
equations. These modules make extensive use of Mathematica.
Development and testing of these modules used the Mathematics Department
INTEL systems and
this class used the INTEL shared lab in Fall 1999.
Math 294,
Introduction to the Mathematics of Finance
This graduate level course
uses the stochastic calculus modules developed for Math 286 as well
as modules specific to finance. This course used the INTEL
shared lab in Winter 1999 and 2000.
RESEARCH
Mathematics Graduate Student,
Rob Ellis has been
using the INTEL computer systems to investigate conjectures for graphs
(click on current projects and see ``Listening to graphs" for example).