Using Maple in homeworks to help students' understanding

For more information contact: Rachel Bearon.

Rachel Bearon uses Maple worksheets to enhance students' understanding of numerical methods in MATH266: the approach, while particularly suitable for numerical methods, could probably be adapted for many other modules.

• The intention is to help students to understand how the numerical methods work, for example to see how methods converge, and the effect of changing grid resolution.
• Homeworks come with an associated Maple worksheet, which students can download from VITAL. Homework problems ask students to check, and sometimes extend, their solutions using Maple.
• Detailed examples of using Maple are given in lectures, and the tutorials are held in a computer room so that students can get Maple help.
• Students submit Maple worksheets by email, and their written homework in the usual way.

This approach seems popular with students: there were several questionnaire comments saying that they had helped students to understand the concepts. It has the added benefit of making marking easier, since students make fewer numerical errors in their written solutions.

Here are 4 sample homework sheets with accompanying Maple worksheets (right-click on the worksheets and choose Save target as or Save link as):

• Homework 2: assignment and maple worksheet.
• Homework 3: assignment and maple worksheet.
• Homework 7: assignment and maple worksheet.
• Homework 10: assignment and maple worksheet.