Mailed on 6 January 2020.

Educational Newsletter AM

A collaboration between the study programme and Abacus

Edition: December 2019

 

Preface

This newsletter covers the first quartile of this academic year. A quick reflection on the first and fifth module of the Bachelor, just before the Christmas holiday. Also, the Programme Committee reflects on their work so far this year.  Without further ado, also on behalf of the board of Abacus: enjoy your holidays!

Linda ten Klooster, Chairman & Officer Educational Affairs W.S.G. Abacus.

 

Introduction by Jan Willem Polderman

This is the last Newsletter under my responsibility in my capacity of Programme Director Applied Mathematics. I started being a PD in August 2008, and although it was never the intention to serve that long, it is now more than eleven years later that it ends here. During these eleven years we have seen some major changes, mainly in the Bachelor’s AM. First and foremost there was, back in 2013, the transition from the old curriculum to the TOM curriculum as we know it now. This was a tremendous effort that we achieved by involving many colleagues and students. Secondly, in 2016, we started with the internationalization of the bachelor. Again, in finding the best way to make that transition, students, and in particular Abacus were heavily involved. This has been my way of working throughout the eleven years. Whenever changes in education needed be made I involved students, after all they are the experts in their learning experience. The nicest and indeed most rewarding part of being the programme director, was working with and for students. In this respect it has been a real pleasure to have close contacts with Abacus and I feel honoured and privileged that I was in the position to have had such close and pleasant collaboration with the AM students. I will certainly miss that. I thank you all for being such fantastic positively oriented AM students and I wish you all the very best in your studies and future professional and personal life. I will continue to teach mathematics, both in AM and other programmes. I am looking forward to my new post as Programme Director Industrial Design Engineering. Finally, it came as a big and moving surprise to receive a beautiful and impressive flower bouquet from the Abacus Educational Committee.

Happy Holidays, Jan Willem.

 

Module 1.

Most of this module went as planned (Linear Structures 1, Calculus 1, Intercultural Communicator & Collaboration). The modelling project was less ideal. We try to formulate a new modelling project each year, and this year the project involved more programming /math and a bit less modelling. Because of that, the standard assessment of the report (which includes modelling steps) shifted a bit towards plain math (and programming), and also the Matlab programming course was a bit late for the modelling project.

 

The students’ opinions were in line with these points. They further suggested differentiating grades in the modelling project because some students do way less/more than others in the project. The reactions further showed that the minor students learned virtually “nothing new”.  I think module 1 is not suitable as a minor. However, for the AM students it was in general nice, and doable in workload.

I am happy that Calculus 1 (with a new teacher) went well, and Linear Structures 1 always scores well.

 

Next year there will be yet another module coordinator, but I would suggest having the 6 Matlab programming sessions done in three (or four) weeks. Reasons for this: (a) in case the project needs programming it should be available earlier; (b) currently we have a Matlab session in the same week as the first exams (the very first exams for the freshmen) and the students feel they need more time for the exam. Also, we are re-thinking the modelling line, and I hope this leads to a Rubric for the modelling project.

Concerning the internationalisation, it went quite fine, both having the students talking in English, and the mingling of Dutch students with international students.
Gjerrit Meinsma, module 1 coordinator.

 

Module 5.

Students were happy with the topics and relevance of the topics of this module.  This year a new component was added to the module, namely, “Prooflab Revisited: the case of stochastics (2 EC)” replacing the “Presenting a Mathematical Subject (2 EC)” from last year.  Also, the new professor of the Statistics group was involved in the components Mathematical Statistics and Project. As opposed to two teachers sharing the lectures of Statistics, he was the one completely responsible for all the lectures.  This was also a suggestion in last couple of years' evaluations.  Furthermore, the project was redesigned in such a way that the students now had much more freedom to execute the project, which was also in the feedbacks of the past. Students appreciated all these changes and the module-team is very happy about it as well.

 

Overall running of the module, however, was a mixed bag. Though the Analysis 2, Prooflab and Project went smoothly, neither the teacher nor the students were so happy about how Mathematical Statistics (MS) went.  The lecturer found it quite demotivating to give a lecture to 10-15 students among the 50 participants in total, whereas some students did not like the teaching style and not happy about the late communication of the exam being somewhat different than the previous years. Also mentioned in the evaluation is the peak study-load in week 8, with two tests (MS and Analysis) and a deadline of Prooflab-report.

 

Next year, we will definitely work on better communication, better scheduling of the deadlines to spread out the study-load, and to find a solution so that the Statistics lecture-sessions are better attended. We expect to have a new Analysis 2 teacher next year.

Language (English) was not an issue.  There were not many international students. Nevertheless, all students spoke English to the teachers.  Among themselves, however, the students spoke Dutch to each other (even inside the classroom).  They did speak in English, though, when there was any international student present.  In my opinion, the international students (though very few) mingled well with the

Dutch students.
Pranab Mandal, module 5 coordinator.

 

It’s already been almost four full months since the beginning of this new academic year and many of us have been able to enjoy the fun and joy that have been brought to us by the many activities and the especially awaited 10th Lustrum of Abacus. What many may forget to notice though, is the work that is put behind the scenes into ensuring that we all may make the best out of our experience as Bachelor and Master students of Applied Mathematics here at the University of Twente. Some of these aspects are, in fact, taken care of by the Programme Committee, which with students, Abacus representatives and staff members together tries to, for example, ensure that subjects are coherent in terms of learning goals and achievable in terms of workload and organisation within a module.

 

Since the beginning of the year, the Programme Committee has already met three times. The following topics have all been discussed or will be further handled throughout this academic year.

One of the hot topics regarding the future of all students at the university is, of course, TEM 2.0, the brand new and remastered version of TEM. Each study programme and related Programme Committee has been asked to put together a sketch of what the modules would look like after the introduction of TEM 2.0, also trying to envision how this should be implemented in OSIRIS. This was no easy task, but an eventual conclusion has been reached as to what Applied Mathematics should look like also paying attention to the coherency within our modules. Furthermore, a much mentioned topic has been the possible addition of an introductory course to Wolfram Mathematica in Module 3 in order for students to have a stronger basis to rely on when later using the programme throughout the module.

 

These are only a few examples of what happens. Module panels, both for the Bachelor and for the Master also are of interest and are carefully looked into and so is the Language Code of Conduct, so if you have a remark or want your opinion to be heard, just look for the Programme Committee. Your
feedback is part of the basis on which we may further work.
On behalf of the student members of the PC, Lavinia Lanting.