Spring 2009 Reflections

I see that I didn't make any comments about Fall 2008. The only thing I would have to say there is that I decided that I didn't really like the Math 093 textbook.

Math 093 - I'm probably about 30-40% done with a textbook/workbook for this class. My primary concern is that the content is not well organized in the current textbook, and that it does not emphasize the points that will help students succeed in Math 097. One of the frustrating things about this textbook is that I feel like I'm giving the students something other than what they really need, and consequently propagating a systemic problem with mathematics education out here. I hope to have this textbook completed in the next four weeks so that I can get it to print with some help from the bookstore.

Math 330 - Linear algebra is a notoriously difficult class because it's very easy to mess up in one of two extremes: Too much computation without enough theory or too much theory without enough computation. I don't know how well I did on this balance. The students came to the class underprepared as a majority of the students are ARL students who don't necessarily have a good mathematics background. In particular, the students really lacked several basic notions of proof and had some problems with basic manipulations at the beginning of class that I wasn't expecting to see.

Math 466 - Numerical analysis is a class that I never took as a student, so I was sort of making it up as I went. The book was pretty good, and I put the emphasis more on the computational methods than the theory. The problem (again) is that the students' background is not as strong as it could be. Their calculus and general proof-writing backgrounds were limited, so the emphasis on methods made sense to me. I found the material to be somewhat interesting, though the derivations were somewhat tedious.