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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






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