Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:28:24.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Teaching first-year students

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2011

F. Simons
Affiliation:
Eindhoven University of Technology
Get access

Summary

There is a big difference between teaching undergraduate students having no idea why mathematics is included in their curriculum and what they can do with it, and teaching more specialised mathematical topics to graduate students who already know why they have included these topics in their curriculum and who have mastered the basic mathematical skills. Thus, for most teachers, the latter form a much more pleasant audience to teach. Service teaching to undergraduates has its own particular problems, both with respect to mathematical contents and to didactics.

In this contribution I will combine my own opinions with respect to content, presentation and developments in the near future with some of the points of view found in the contributed papers.

The starting point of the discussion document [4] for the ICMI-study is that mathematics is taught as a service subject in response to a need. It then concentrates on three questions:

  1. - Why do we teach mathematics to students of discipline X?

  2. - What mathematics should be taught to these students?

  3. - How should this mathematics be taught?

I would like to start with considering these questions for service teaching to undergraduates, thereby describing the situation at this moment at many places. Next I propose to discuss whether the present situation gives a satisfactory answer to these questions in the light of the changing demands of the disciplines and the increasing availability of computer hard- and software.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×