Re: Re: Re: Re: my wish list for Mathematica next major version
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg60113] Re: [mg60094] Re: [mg60077] Re: [mg60064] Re: my wish list for Mathematica next major version
- From: "David Park" <djmp at earthlink.net>
- Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 02:06:01 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi Pratik, I never get anywhere near academia, but it is clear from postings on MathGroup and many private communications I have had that things could be better with respect to technical computing in education. Specifically, it is not fair that students should be expected to learn technical material and Mathematica, or any other CAS, at the same time. Perhaps students who are in careers using mathematics should have a required one semester Freshman course in Mathematica or the CAS of their choice. They still wouldn't know everything but at least they wouldn't be stumbling over basic syntax and they might even develop an appreciation of the many beautiful things that can be done. It would be even better if students aiming for a technical career would learn Mathematica in high school. It would be far more valuable to them than a calculus course. David Park djmp at earthlink.net http://home.earthlink.net/~djmp/ From: Pratik Desai [mailto:pdesai1 at umbc.edu] To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net David Park wrote: >It is interesting to hear what things bother students because that is >important information. > >I'm not certain that a debugger is the best solution. Rather, I suspect that >students have not learned well enough how to use Mathematica. > Hi David, In most cases in the (atleast in the) engineering curriculum rarely offers courses particularly focussed on learning a language or a package. The student is expected to learn the language/package as he uses it in the course. So any little help at the earlier stages goes a long way in determining the success of the students ability to master the package/language and indeed the course material. Althought the tutorial offered by mathematica is quite good, essentially more interactive tutorials could go a long way in helping students learn Mathematica the right way. But on the flip side of the coin, I have learnt a lot about mathematica just trying debugging messages and understanding the output, and sometimes has even helped me figure out conceptual errors in my approach. Best regards Pratik Desai PS: Thank you for calling my attention to Dialog.....pretty neat -- Pratik Desai Graduate Student UMBC Department of Mechanical Engineering Phone: 410 455 8134