DIY Math

This is the Syllabus for your Course. Any course participant is allowed to edit this page.

For the moment please discuss ideas in the mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/diy-math. (Regular discussion will be an important part of the course; I think posting a weekly report would be a minimum.)  Feel free to email me directly with any questions, concerns or ideas (holtzermann17@gmail.com).

UPDATE (1st of September): Having taken a peek at the fantastic applications everyone has submitted so far, let me remind you that discussing and sharing ideas and concerns with others in the course will be a key part of the course.  It's not required that you do this immediately, but please be ready to introduce yourself and your interests in the mailing list by the time the course starts, or just go ahead and do it any time.  Your applications contain great material to recycle in these introductions.  Other things you may include: how you'd like to be addressed, any other things that will help people understand how you like to think about things, and maybe a math icebreaker, like your favorite math concept to date.  Another useful thing to do is to reply to at least one other person's self-introduction to say how it relates to your own interests.

UPDATE (1st of September): In a mathematical context, in which asking and answering questions is central, and the discussions are less about "critique" and more about critical thinking, we'll still want to come up with some discussion guidelines or objectives.  Some things each participant may want to be thinking about are: how willing are you to ask questions?  And to answer questions?  How much time can you devote to the course and to working on learning mathematics over the next six weeks?

UPDATE (9th of September): It would also be great to update the group when you start looking at a new mathematical resource, and when you've gotten into it a bit, give a review saying whether you found that particular resource helpful or not, and why.   Feel free to add books or other resources you especially like to one of these course pages as well.  It would also be very helpful would be to post short summaries of any study strategies you're using, whether they are problem-solving heuristics or simpler things like "I'm planning to look at this book for an hour each evening".  Again, you can also post reviews of your strategies.

UPDATE (9th of September):  The applications seem to cluster into 4 roughly equal-sized clumps: (a) general interest; (b) specifically technical interest (mathematics related to computing); (c) traditional college mathematics; and (d) more advanced mathematical topics.  Some people have interests going across these clumps, and that's OK, of course!  It may be very helpful, if possible, to identify one or more study buddies who are interested in topics similar to the ones you're most interested in.  E.g. I think it would make a lot of sense for people interested in Calculus III topics to talk with each other regularly.

UPDATE (27th of September): The way I've been thinking about this course, a lot of the time involvement would come down to doing one of two things: writing a post in response to one of the two prompts that follow:

• "Tell us about something you learned."; and/or
• "Tell us about something you're having difficulty with."

I feel like this is something we could be doing as often as daily, though I certainly haven't been doing that.  Probably this should have been part of the syllabus from the beginning, but it wasn't entirely clear to me that this is such a big part of what this course is meant to be about until recently.  Anyway, feel free to post about these topics as frequently as you wish!

TIMELINE:

• 25 Aug – 8 Sep: Sign-up open
• 8 – 10 Sep: Review of sign-ups, preparations for course start
• 10 Sep: Participants are informed
• 15 Sep: Courses start
• 22 Sep: Week 2
• 29 Sep: Week 3
• 6 Oct: Week 4
• 13 Oct: Week 5
• 20 Oct: Week 6
• 27 Oct: Courses close

RECOMMENDED READING:

• How to Solve It (1945, updated edition 2009) by George Pólya.
• What is the Moore Method? (1999) by William S. Mahavier.

MATHEMATICS TOPICS & INTERESTED STUDENTS

• Statistics
  • Charles Danoff, especially when used for sports analysis
• Introduction to Calculus
  • Charles Danoff
• Bayesian Statistics
  • Joe Corneli
• Heuristics
  • Joe Corneli