A Summative Report on Exploring Quantitative Relationships

Mathematics and Computer Education, Spring 2004 by Carl, Minette, Goldberg, Robert, Waxman, Jerry

Abstract

During the years 2000-2003, a course on Exploring Quantitative Relationships (EQR) was created at Queens College under the support of the U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of PostSecondary Education (DOE-FIPSE Grant# P116B000772). Exploratory in nature, the course goals were to acquaint liberal arts students with mathematical techniques that can be applied to a wide array of disciplines. This was accomplished using an Excel spreadsheet program that allowed students to set up systems of equations and to visualize scientific data, without the apprehensions associated with solving detailed mathematical systems.

This paper comes at the summation of the three-year project and reports on extensive student surveys conducted throughout the semester and at various points of their learning. Specifically, the EQR course positively influenced liberal arts students in the following ways:

1. Introductory computer literacy courses encouraged liberal arts majors to enroll in science and mathematics courses.

2. By using spreadsheet applications, many students gained confidence for tackling/solving problems involving mathematical formulations.

3. Many students indicated interest in retaining the concepts learned by (re)viewing materials related to the course.

1. Introduction

At Queens College, a novel first course for liberal arts majors, CS12: Exploring Quantative Relationships, was developed with the support of FIPSE for curriculum development and the ILI (Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement) program of NSF to build the corresponding laboratory. This course focused mostly on teaching non-technical students to reason quantitatively and program computationally within their own disciplines. FIPSE and this project is part of a consortium of universities to coordinate research on developmental mathematics. (Vasquez, 2002)

Topics typically covered include DOS and Windows, for navigating the computer system; Word, for reporting scientific findings; Excel, for modeling systems of equations; WWW and HTML, for setting up a website to disseminate the results; and, time permitting, Access and UNIX. When applicable, these topics include macro programming in and between applications. The class meets four hours a week, for a fifteen-week semester. A weekly syllabus of topics is presented below. It should be noted that some of this material, at discretion of the instructor, is assigned with detailed tutorials for home study. This is the case with setting up a webpage on a UNIX system web server for example, which is due at the end of the semester. In addition, the computer center that maintains the laboratories provides independent workshops on these topics.

Introductory Material

Week 1 Computer Hardware and Software Terminology; Activating User Accounts, Assigning Passwords and Logging in;

Week 2 Operating Systems; DOS Shell File Management; Windows Visual Navigation of the Computer System;

Week 3 Use of Internet Explorer to Access the World Wide Web; Search Engines and Information Retrieval from the Web; Downloading Files; Composing and Sending e-mails;

Word Processing

Week 4 File Creation (open/close/save); Editing and Formatting; Searching for Text Strings; Spell-Check and Auto Correction; Find and Replace text;

Week 5 Cut, Copy and Paste with the Clipboard; Undo and Redo Mistakes; Creating Tables; Bullets, Numbering and Outlines;

Week 6 Incorporating Clip Art and Multimedia Objects into Document; Converting to a Web Page by Saving as HTML; Basic HTML Tags; Exam;

Excel Spreadsheet

Week 7 Data Entry; Basic Calculations and the Function Wizards; Cell Ranges using Relative and Absolute Addressing;

Week 8 IF statements; VLOOKUP Lookup Tables; Autofill; Freeze Pane; What-if Analysis; Goal Seeking;

Week 9 Graphing and the Interpretation of Charts; Chart Wizard; Data Series; Customizing Graphs;

Week 10 List and Data Management; Sorting Data; Filters; 3-D Workbooks and File Linking;

Week 11 Quantitative Analysis based on Probability and Statistics; Financial Mathematics such as Calculating Mortgage and Interest Rates;

Week 12 Using Solver; Setting-up and Solving Linear Programming Problems; Basic Optimization (single variable) using Solver;

Week 13 Automating a Sequence of Actions using Macros; Review of Material for Exam; Exam;

Access Database

Week 14 Introduction to Databases; How Access differs from Excel; Tables and Forms: Design, Properties, Views, and Wizards;

Week 15 Information from the Database: Reports and Queries; Review of Material for Final Examination;

WWW Hosted on UNIX

Self-Study Basic UNIX File Commands; Setting Up the Home Page on a UNIX Web Server; Incorporating Multimedia; Hyperlinks and Creating a Web Site.

The CS12 course has two portions: lecture (two hours per week), and laboratory (two hours per week). The lecture is held in a 164 seat, lecture hall (typical for introductory courses in large universities). There, concepts are discussed and a computer demonstration is given using an audio/visual system that projects the demonstration on a large overhead panel. The "hands-on" work is done in the laboratory in groups of 20-30 students, with each student having a computer system. All of these systems are networked together and the instructor can project ("broadcast") the screen of any one station to the front of the class in order to show students a novel approach. Thus, the laboratory process is quite dynamic. (Derbyshire, 1995)