Timeline for Teaching undergraduate students to write proofs
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 25, 2013 at 5:56 | comment | added | J W | @KConrad: I agree that graph theory may seem rather artificial to students if it is presented without its numerous applications to areas such as combinatorial optimization, complex networks, computer science, and discrete geometry. That's the danger of using it in a proofs course, where the emphasis is unlikely to be on the applications. | |
| Jan 17, 2011 at 0:50 | comment | added | Jérôme JEAN-CHARLES | @Andres: Yes if all students agree on a proof that means they also get some sense of what is 'no proof' or bad proof and before they will learn to be critical. | |
| Jan 13, 2011 at 15:44 | comment | added | kcrisman | Well, of course it depends on the clientele, as it were. And I wasn't recommending basing the whole course on graph theory - that is the OP's option 1. I'm just suggesting a possible supplement to a type 2 course. With respect to your friend's experience, I've had the opposite reaction - students who never really cared about why it was useful; they just loved drawing the graphs! I suppose there are as many experiences as groups of students. | |
| Jan 13, 2011 at 4:35 | comment | added | KConrad | I heard about a first course on proofs taught a few years ago in which the instructor based the whole course on graph theory. It was a complete disaster since the students in the course (math majors, but also math ed. students) never caught on to why they should give a hoot about graph theory. So be careful when you say that proving easy things about graphs is actually going to inspire students. | |
| Jan 13, 2011 at 2:55 | history | edited | Andrés E. Caicedo | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
Fixed the link
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| Jan 13, 2011 at 2:49 | history | answered | kcrisman | CC BY-SA 2.5 |