We have no complaints about the technical preparation of the students that your institution sends to us.

Do not lower this level of competence under any circumstances. However the following non-technical skills may be worth addressing Could they become part of what you teach? [Paraphrased quote that arises in many meetings between university faculty and industry representatives.] Pedagogical Issues. Mathematicians (and I am one of them) as well and scientists and engineers enjoy talking shop. We have chosen our profession because we consider it worthy to (especially as academicians) devote the rest of our lives to it. So it is natural that we want to present the beautiful intricacies of our chosen field to our colleagues, friends and also our students. There is nothing wrong with that. Our shop talk is the seed to the solid technical preparation that employers (and graduate schools) value about people with a mathematical background. Yet there are other aspects of teaching that can help us enhance our discussion and our instruction. These softer aspects of teaching correspond to employer requests (see introductory quote) for so-called soft skills in graduates, especially in technical fields (such as ability to work in teams, communication skills, etc.). All our technical skill is useless if it never transfers to our audience. This document exhibits some pedagogical aspects that I try to implement in the modular materials project. It starts with the idea of curricular integration. This idea is at the root of the project, but it is not mandatory for the use of the materials. The underlying ideas are applicable independent of the context of this particular approach. Feel free to use and modify them. Mathematical features of the texts (which will not be sacrificed for any kind of pedagogy, just like employers who ask for soft skills do not want us to back down on hard skills) are discussed in the document on mathematical issues. Target audience. The target audience for the modular materials are engineering, science (including mathematics) and education freshman and sophomores. These students are the majority of the students that take calculus and differential equations. They are also the ones most likely to use the content. Therefore we should address their needs. At Louisiana Tech University we have an integrated science and an integrated engineering curriculum. This setup allows us to tailor instruction more closely to the needs of the audiences in the respective sections. However, we use the same books in all sections. Therefore the materials are intended to serve the needs of all students, with emphasis on specific topics depending on the audience. Connections to other fields. The diversity of students that need mathematical preparation is daunting. It will never be possible to connect every bit of mathematics we teach explicitly to a need in every students chosen field. However, there are natural connections that can and should be used when they arise. From the content side, many natural connections are dictated. Vector analysis is naturally motivated through the analysis of electrical and magnetic fields. This motivation works well for electrical engineering and physics students. In a class full of students from these majors, one can

achieve great gains through this connection. In a class that has few of these majors, one cannot go as deeply, but one can explain the background why we are interested in these fields. Plus, one can switch to transport phenomena and show how the flux through a surface is not just limited to physics and electrical engineering. The goal therefore can only be to make focused connections to other fields whenever possible. These connections should be more than a sporadic example. They should be a thread that goes through a module of the text. As long as the underpinnings can be understood in reasonable time, the extra effort will pay back in increased student motivation (which normally causes increased performance). On a lighter note, since I started making more and more connections to other fields, the question What will we ever need this for? has vanished from my classroom. Modularity. Integration of mathematics with other disciplines can require substantial departures from the status quo in undergraduate education. The needs of engineering and science classes are dictated by the applications under investigation. This means that the same application may require some modeling with differential equations, algebraic computations plus some statistical analysis. Through the eyes of a mathematician, the requirements just mentioned cut across several lines/courses in the traditional freshman and sophomore curriculum, because they involve material from precalculus, differential equations and statistics (also cf. Figure 1).

P D Es S t a t is t ic s L in e a r A lg e b r a D Es V e c t o r C a lc u lu s I n t e g r a ls D e r iv a t iv e s L i m it s A lg e b r a C u r r ic u lu m s t a r ts

U t i li za t io n o f T o p ic s : M ATH vs. EN G R

C u r r ic u lu m e n ds

Figure 1. The mathematicians approach to mathematics vs. its ENGR/SCI use. Integrating mathematics with other disciplines is challenging because of the different ways to approach mathematics. Teaching mathematics is preferred in a linear fashion from more elementary to more advanced topics as indicated by the steadily sloping line. Using mathematics in engineering as well as science classes involves much lowlevel algebra (and calculus) with occasional conceptual spikes that require the understanding of deeper concepts for modeling. The challenge for integration with other disciplines is that certain key topics will be needed early in the curriculum long before the traditional presentation can provide full mathematical support.

However, analysis of the most common needs of early engineering and science classes shows that the advanced needs (differential equations and statistics) are often focused enough to be accommodated early in the curriculum. For example, core topics on constant coefficient linear differential equations or elementary statistics up to the central limit theorem can be covered in a few weeks, once students are comfortable with single variable calculus. The shifting of materials is possible without violating the logical structure of mathematics, because the actual dependency of topics is far from linear (cf. Figure 2).
B as ic V ec tors , dot, c ros s produc t Lines and P lanes F unc tions of one varia ble Lim its in one vari able Deri vati ves , s ingle va riable Integ rals , s ingle vari able

S eque nc es and S eries of N um be rs

S pac e c ur ves (pa ram etric s )

F unc tions of s e ver al va riabl es

D iffere ntiation Rules Lim its in s eve ral vari ables A pplic ations of Deri vati ves (O ptim iz ation, R R) Integ ratio n T ec hniq ues

M ultiple Integ rals

P artial Deri vati ves

Differe ntial E quations , Intr o Linea r D i ffer ential E quations , The ory

P hy s ics applic ations

C ontin uous P roba bility

P hy s ics applic ations

O ptim iz ation

C las s es of firs t ord er DE s

S tatis tic s , CL T

V ec tor A naly s is

Linea r c ons tant c oeffic ient DE s , ex pon ential s etup

Laplac e trans for m s

F ouri er S eries

T ay lor s eries

B ound ary V alue P roble m s P artial D iffere ntial E quations , Intr o S eries s olutions of D iffere ntial E quations

Figure 2. A nonlinear view of the canonical early mathematics topics. Analysis of the logical dependency of topics in early college mathematics reveals that the structure of the topics does not dictate one and only one linear presentation. Instead, there is a multitude of possible approaches as witnessed by the above dependency chart. The only logical mandate is that if two topics are connected by a solid arrow, then the topic at the start of the arrow must be covered first. Dotted arrows indicate topics that could mutually reinforce each other but could still be covered in any order.

A modular text allows the quick adaptation of mathematical content to a curriculums needs through the shifting of a few modules within the curriculum. Time spent on material that is new in the early curriculum is gained back later, since the material need not be covered again. The totality of content taught remains the same and if prerequisites are respected, the logical structure of mathematics is not violated. To

prevent violations of logic, prerequisites as well as learning objectives are stated at the start of each module (also see below). Explicitly indicated prerequisites help faculty decide where in the curriculum to insert a particular module. It should also help the increasing number of nontraditional students who upon their return to the mathematics sequence may need to brush up certain skills. The prerequisites are purposely kept lean to allow coverage of each module as early as possible. Cross connections to other modules are not omitted, but if they are not needed to understand the material, they are not part of the prerequisites. Prerequisites are not merely stated, but also enforced, because To read without a pencil is daydreaming. (Mathematical lore.) Especially beginning students find reading mathematical texts difficult. Reading mathematics is different from reading web pages, magazines, novels and even some textbooks in other fields. Mathematical reading progresses very slowly and the reader is often expected to fill in gaps that are left by the author to save space and time or for an educational purpose (which is often the obvious one: to make the reader fill in the gap). An important feature of the modular materials is to encourage the reader to become a mathematical reader. Early in a module, mathematical reading is modeled by providing side calculations in the margin in a handwriting font. As we progress deeper, the gaps that previously were filled by the author with a simulated readers note are now left with a handwritten note that says to perform a certain side calculation. In this fashion the reader is reminded of prerequisite skills and also encouraged to use these prerequisite skills. Checking results is another obvious place to enforce prerequisites and to make connections between subjects. Integrals can be checked by taking the derivative, solutions to equations can be checked by substituting into the equation, etc. These double checks not only reinforce earlier content and potentially make connections to another part of a course. They are also vital skills for the practitioner who uses mathematics to obtain a result. If the result is important, then it is important enough to be checked. Modeling the idea of double checks with handwritten double checks and later with encouragements to check will seed good habits in the reader and also slow the reading speed to a more appropriate pace. Closely connected to checking and reading is the ability to proofread ones own work. If all our students were able to correctly check their results and to find mistakes in computations by proofreading, performance would be much better. To give students a start into proofreading I am incorporating checking mistakes exercises whenever possible. In these exercises a problem is solved (correctly or incorrectly) and the student has to read the solution, decide if it is right and suggest a fix if needed. Learning objectives tell the student in advance what is expected (at the least) after completion of a module. These objectives can be quite focused and they reflect what we typically test in the respective classes. My typical answer to questions what will be on a test is to check the learning objectives. By reading the learning objectives, connecting them with parts of the text and the course and subsequently finding or making up

exercises that test the content, students confront the material at a deeper level than they would by going over a list of possible test problems that a (well meaning) teacher may have made up. Repetition emphasizes a point and puts it into long-term memory. My mind seems to function in a very simple fashion. When I visualize a generic function, I always see the same picture. A concave down smooth arc in the first quadrant. With this picture, secant lines, tangent lines, integration etc, can be explained. So when it came to drawing figures for the text, this picture was used a lot in various guises. The result is that familiar structures reoccur throughout the text, giving new ideas at least a slightly familiar context. This context facilitates entry into the new subject and thus better learning. Similarly I am repeating pictures in exercises that explore different concepts (that way students are shown that different questions can be asked about the same object). Of course this is the old adage once, twice and then again. I hope however that my repetition shows the ideas from different angles, increasing insight, rather than simply rehashing the same words over and over, which accomplishes nothing. Another aspect of repetition are the gaps to be filled in the margin and the frequent double checks of results. Cross connections within mathematics are another instance of creative repetition. I will frequently use the results of earlier exercises and examples later in the text. For example, computation of the area under the normal distribution within one, two and three standard deviations of the mean is a perfect opportunity to refer back to corresponding examples and exercises in the section on numerical integration. Dont just tell students that one can use Simpsons rule here. Show them or (even better) make them do it. Whenever there is a natural context for methods that were learned earlier, these methods should be put to use. Conversely, mentioning the later use of examples that might otherwise vanish in the crowd gives context and motivation to examples that students could misidentify as just another grinding set of computations. Extensive cross-connections and modularity are not contradictory. For modules that are used as stand-alones, explanations of references to modules that are not included are provided in an appendix. Exercises are the part of a text which students will confront most often. Regular homework assignments will make sure of that. I have tried to incorporate as large a variety of exercises as possible. Routine exercises that train a skill (such as differentiation) are a must. Exercises for which there is no example to mimic are equally important, though there will be fewer of them (they take longer and appropriate ones are quite challenging to find or make up; some of these ideas are discussed in the document on mathematical features). Ideas for good exercises or projects will always be appreciated. Projects are a way to make students confront content at a deeper level. At the end of each module I want to have a mix of computational and theoretical projects as appropriate to the content. For example, a natural project on Laplace transforms is to make students write a program in a computer algebra system that goes through all steps of the solution process for a differential equation. Such a project can be assigned as soon as students

have been exposed to the process, which can be as early as the first class on Laplace transforms. The result is that students internalize the procedure more readily and the many details are no longer as daunting (they are recognized to be mere details). Moreover, such programming projects exhibit the purpose of using computer algebra systems, because the problems that are to be solved with the program are deliberately chosen to have ugly solutions. More theoretical projects could be guided derivations (for example in partial differential equations, the solution of the equation of a vibrating string) or proofs (of the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem at the high end in the module on sequences). In between can also be numerical checks of approximations that are common in engineering or science. For example, in one project on boundary value problems, the shape of a catenary on an interval is compared with the shape of a similar quadratic to justify the replacement of a catenary with a quadratic. This replacement is frequently done in engineering for cables that do not sag too much. Experiments. As much as possible, I will try to supply ideas for in-class experiments (mostly borrowed from other disciplines) to show the reality of mathematical concepts and computations. This development is slow, but seems to be worth it. Students invariably are impressed when I use differential equations to predict the frequency of a spring-mass-system and when we let the mass oscillate, the prediction turns out to be right. This is a very simple demonstration, but it works well. Such experiments give a tangible connection to classes that students take in close curricular proximity to our classes. Valuable cross-connections are thus available to reinforce content in mathematics as well as in the application area. In-class activities can help break the routine in a class. Motivations of theorems, plausibility arguments and sometimes even guided proofs are included in an appendix with in-class activities. Similarly, exercises to train a certain skill or applications of the just introduced theorem are included. In this fashion the user will have an opportunity to change from spectator to active participant. Mathematics is best learned by doing and with in-class activities being a fixed part of the text, this idea becomes a formal part of the training, rather than just good advice. To give students as well as teachers a start into active/cooperative learning, I will summarize the most common cooperative learning techniques at the start of the appendix with the activities (I just have not written that part yet). Finally, I am writing a (hopefully) down-to-earth instructors manual. This manual is developing as I am teaching from my texts and it is in essence just my class preparations typed up. This development alone should assure that the manual stays useable, because I will mark or erase stuff that may have been nice, but just did not do much. Because there are many ways to cover a class and many things to be said, the preparations cannot be class-by-class preparations that we follow step-by-step. It would be horrible if large numbers of people tried to teach exactly like me and it would be even worse if they actually succeeded. How boring would education be if all classes were the same? The manual will contain probably too much for an individual class, but enough can be gleaned to effectively teach the material.