- Welcome!
- Some thoughts for the day, and for the course:
- For you to be successful, your attitude is as important as your ability.
- What you do shows who you are.
- 3x5 cards: Please fill out the card, indicating
- Name
- Hometown
- Year (Freshman, etc.)
- Major
- Career ambition
- Something special about yourself.
- Introductions
- The syllabus.
- Class will be organized around discussions of material,
and activities. You must be prepared to contribute! My
role will be to present and help clarify, but
preferably to moderate discussions, and be a resource.
- I find that students are best at explaining ideas to
other students. So what I shoot for is some students
to get the idea in class, and then to "infect" the
rest of the students.
- If you're expecting this to be a "practical math" course, you will
be disappointed. This is a course incorporating material for a
broad range of liberal arts disciplines. Some of them will be
interesting to you, some of them may not. But this is not
another algebra course, and I won't be teaching you to balance
your checkbook!
- The course agreement (regrettably necessary)
- Your first assignment
- Our goal is more than just mathematics -- there are "Lessons for life"
that we should focus on:
- Keep an open mind.
- Just do it. Jump in. Make mistakes and fail, but never give up.
- Often when we've done it once, we do it again. Follow up one good deed with another!
- Understand simple things deeply.
- Break a difficult problem into easier ones.
- Look for patterns and similarities.
- Explore the consequences of new ideas. Generalize.
- Examine issues from several points of view.
Don't be a turkey -- be a dog! (this one requires a little
explanation!)
- Question of the day:
Why do we count?
Website maintained by Andy Long.
Comments appreciated.
