Using Student Differential Equations Projects for General Public Education
0Presented by:
Lawrence Udeigwe, Manhattan College, Riverdale NY USA and MIT, Cambridge MA USA
https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/simiode/expo
Abstract: Recent events and technological advancements have led to many innovations on how students are instructed and assessed in mathematics courses. Teaching a traditional differential equation course during the COVID-19 pandemic forced me to think of innovative and interesting ways of assessing the students while making sure I covered all the required topics. Inspired by SIMIODE materials, I helped the students design public education projects. The goal of this project was to use a SIMIODE article to introduce the general public to an application of differential equations. An important punch line of the project description is: ‘Your target audience is a high school student. Your job is to teach this student without intimidating him.’ The projects were disseminated in long form via YouTube, and in short form via instagram and tiktok.
In this talk I will discuss my takeaways including (1) feedback from students; (2) areas that need improvement; (3) scaling beyond differential equations.