The course work is NOT in a lecture/recitation format. In many ways, it is lab-based, since a significant portion of the learning will occur in a "workshop setting" setting. The workshop component will allow students to work examples, discover patterns, and formulate conjectures. Group work is an essential part of the workshop, and collaboration is also encouraged on homework. The purpose of the lecture portion of the class is to introduce new material and to indicate how each subtopic fits into the larger context of the course.
The grade for each course will be primarily based on homework and lab reports. The lab reports are written answers to questions based on computer-based exploration of topics. The labs will be shorter than those in the first-year calculus courses, but there will be five or six of them in each course. Sample labs and topics are available at the URL http://www.geom.umn.edu/~fjw/calcIII/.
The instructor of these courses strongly believes that calculus is best learned in the context of applications, and that abstractions are best appreciated after meeting concrete examples. As a result, this sequence will integrate applications throughout the course, rather than isolating them into special sections. Similarly, concepts in linear algebra will be introduced as needed, rather than learned out of context.
The instructor for the course is Rick Wicklin (School of Mathematics) who has
degrees in applied mathematics, pure mathematics, physics, and engineering.
He has worked in the aerospace industry, in an industrial research and
development setting, and has spent the last three years at the NSF Geometry
Center at the University.
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