2014 Summer International Course at Shanghai University

Mathematics in Daily Life


A class photo

Row 3. Junjie Xu, Renteng Huang, Xin Fan, Yinxiang Ma, Zhihao Hu, Zeyu Xu, Weitao Zhu, Chao Hu.
Row 2. Mengyuan Li, Yao Ge, Jiahui Zong, Ziqian Liu, Zhixia Lin, Sheng Liu, Honggang Hu, Yong Geng, Jun Zhang, Linfan Wang, Mengge Hu, Tianyu Chen
Row 1. Yajing Ge, Yun Ye, Xiaomei Gao, Chi-Kwong Li, Yinglei Hua, Peiyu Si, Wanting Shi, Miaomiao Wang, Siyuan Nie.



Course Description

This course aims to help students develop the mathematical literacy to see the connections and applications of mathematics to daily life activities. The course consists of two components:


Format and structure

June 16 (Monday) 1:00-2:00 p.m.

June 17 (Tuesday) 8:00-9:00 a.m.

June 18 (Wednesday) 8:00-9:00 a.m.

June 19/20 (Thursday/Friday) 1:00-2:00 p.m.


Objectives of the course/expected learning outcome

As participants, students will learn:

As presenters, students will learn how to:

Course work and assessment [Some notess on the assessment scheme]

       Class participation.                                          25 points
       Evaluations/summary of presentations of other speakers.       25 points
       Presentation.                                                 25 points
       Written report.                                               25 points.

Activities
Afterthought about the course (Chi-Kwong Li)

1. Objective of the mini-course


My understanding is that the goal of the mini courses is to provide a variety of 
topics for students at SHU to experience different educational models, and gain 
some international experience. It is a wonderful idea.

In this connection, my course on  ``Mathematics in Daily Life'' is to let students 
see that mathematics is not just about formulas and technical proofs. It is related 
to different topics  and also daily life activities if one can make the connection.

Also, I want to let the students see that one should not passively receive knowledge 
in the classroom at the university level. One should learn how to make connections of 
of their knowledge acquired from their instructors and textbooks to the outside world. 
Nowadays, it is easy to get a lot of information from different sources, one needs to 
select useful information, make suitable connections, and make good use of them in 
order to be successful in future study and work. This is would help ``break the 
four barriers'' emphasized as the spirit of the Shanghai University.

It is also worth pointing out that even though my course does not emphasize
technical mathematics, the discussion can easily lead to study at the research
level. What I want to demonstrate is: one can make the connections according
to his/her own interest and background that will lead to different levels
of appreciating, using, and doing research in mathematics.


2. Students

Most students saw the difference between my course and the mathematics courses in 
the past experience. Asking them to  change their learning mode, and use English to 
communicate is challenging. This obviously move them away from their comfort zone.
In any event, most students have a reasonable command of English. Many of them  are
just lacking practice and confidence. Hopefully, they would have more confidence and 
understand they can  indeed communicate well in English if they have enough practice.


I am happy that students were able to come up with a presentation and a report in a 
very short period of time. Of course, there are rooms of improvements, and it is not 
the hope that this short course can teach them all the techniequs in communicating 
mathematics orally and in writing. Nonetheless, it is the hope that students would 
learn from their experience and those of others so that they would be able to improve 
themselves continuously in communicating ideas (mathematics or other subjects). 
Thus, instead of  a learning experience in one course, it will become a life long 
educational experience. In fact, in real life, one may indeed have to finish a task
in a short notice of time, and give a presentation with time limits. So, in a sense
the course provides some experience in real life setting. In addition, working with
other team mates, and giving contructive comments to other classmates are also part
of the training related to real life situations. Hopefully, students see that there
are many other skills that will help their future study and work besides technical 
knowledge.

3. Possible improvements

I also learn a great deal in this course. There are much could be improved
under the current setting.

a) Before meeting the students, I can put up more sample and proposed projects 
   on my course website. Then students can choose tentative topics for their 
   presentations even in day one, and form different groups according to their 
   common interest.

b) I could set up more meetings with students in the first 3 days so that
   students could get guidance for the preparation of their presentations.

c) The idea of teaching buddies is a wonderful idea. But I think that it is 
   important that the teaching buddy have time to work with the instructor.
   (Do not assign a busy professor as a teaching buddy.) Ideally, the teaching
   buddy can go to every class with the instructor, giving feedback and sharing
   experience with the instructor, helping the instructor with the university 
   computer system. In fact, instead of treating the duty as a burden, hopefully,
   the teaching buddy can also gain some useful useful experience in the process.

d) Hopefully, the Google search engine, and gmail are not blocked. It has huge
   negative impact on the teaching for some instructors such as myself who rely
   heavily on these websites.

Summary and evaluation form

Sample presentation and report format

Some suggested topics.

Some useful references