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• Introductory Computer Programming Courses in Mathematics Curriculum

  19-30

  Leslie Jones

  Tim Smith

  Views:

  113

  We present the results of surveys and curricular research on introductory computer programming courses that are required or recommended for mathematics degrees at U.S. colleges and universities. Our target schools were those with populations between 5,000 and 20,000 undergraduate students. A key result is a synopsis of programming languages in use in these introductory courses with Java, Python and C + + holding the top three spots. We found that 85% of the 340 schools in our pool require or recommend an introductory programming course as a component of a mathematics degree. Furthermore, most of these introductory programming courses are taught by faculty outside of the mathematics department. These results indicate that mathematics faculty value computer programming and should be actively involved in setting learning outcomes, incorporating skills and concepts learned in introductory programming courses into subsequent mathematics courses, and determining programming languages in use.

  Subject Classification: 97D30, 97P20, 97P40

• Teaching undergraduate mathematics - a problem solving course for first year

  183-206

  Eng Guan Tay

  Kok Ming Teo

  Tin Lam Toh

  Pee Choon Toh

  Weng Kin Ho

  Khiok Seng Quek

  Yew Hoong Leong

  Views:

  105

  In this paper we describe a problem solving course for first year undergraduate mathematics students who would be future school teachers.

  Subject Classification: 97B50, 97B70, 97D50, 97D60, 97F60, 97U30

• Understanding the spatiotemporal sample: a practical view for teaching geologist students

  89-99

  Ilona Kovácsné Székely

  Views:

  26

  One of the most fundamental concept of statistics is the (random) sample. Our experience – acquired during the years of undergraduate education – showed that prior to industrial practice, the students in geology (and, most probably, in many other non-mathematics oriented disciplines as well) are often confused by the possible multiple interpretation of the sample. The confusion increases even further, when samples from stationary temporal, spatial or spatio-temporal phenomena are considered. Our goal in the present paper is to give a viable alternative to this overly mathematical approach, which is proven to be far too demanding for geologist students.
  Using the results of an environmental pollution analysis we tried to show the notion of the spatiotemporal sample and some of its basic characteristics. On the basis of these considerations we give the definition of the spatiotemporal sample in order to be satisfactory from both the theoretical and the practical points of view.