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News

Mailed on 4 November 2016.

Newsletter Applied Mathematics, Volume 3, Issue 1.

Preface

I'd like to welcome the freshmen to the university and to W.S.G. Abacus. I hope you will enjoy the study and your student life at Abacus and suggest you read previous newsletters so you know what to expect of modules that have yet to come.

This educational newsletter is the first newsletter of the study year 2016-2017 where the study programme Applied Mathematics became an international study programme. The study association W.S.G. Abacus therefore decided to become bilingual so non-Dutch speaking students can enjoy all of the fine things our association has to offer as well, such as this newsletter.

The final module of the bachelor has been organised for the first time so that is extra interesting reading material.

Have fun reading!

 

Steven Horstink, officer Educational Affairs W.S.G. Abacus.

 

Module 4: Fields and Electromagnetism.

Module 4 is conducted jointly with the Applied Physics program and consists of three closely related parts: vector calculus, electricity and magnetism, and a project. The project focusses on the historical context, in particular the struggle of Maxwell, and other researchers, to understand the physics of electricity and magnetism and the strong impetus this presented to the development of new mathematics in the nineteenth century. Each group of students will build a historic experiment that was important to gain insight in the physics of electricity and magnetism.

The topics in this module are closely related, which is generally appreciated by the students, although there are always some students that say there is too much physics or mathematics in this module. In the project we always mix students from Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics and, after some time, this generally results in a nice interaction. Especially, when the historical experiment they build starts to work, many people get excited. It is also interesting to see how quickly students from these two programs develop a different approach to solving problems.

The module is relatively difficult and requires some serious work. It is interesting to see that there is a very strong correlation between the grades for E&M and vector calculus, both for the Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics students. Based on the reviews from last year, we started one week earlier with E&M, so that the first few weeks are focusing a little bit less on vector calculus only. Next year, we will try to start with E&M even earlier, but this is hindered by the fact that one needs to know some essential parts from vector calculus before one can start with E&M.

The results of the module were quite reasonable, but this year there was a very large difference in appreciation of the module between the Applied Physics (high) and Applied Mathematics students (average). Part of the reason was that the grades of the second E&M test were available only four working days before the retake, instead of five. This resulted in a lot of discussion with the Applied Mathematics students, and even appeals to the exam committee, although most students could know much earlier than four days if they had to retake the E&M exam, based on the results of the first test and the detailed answers of the second test discussed in class. In the end, all students in the module could to do a second E&M retake in July, but the results of this additional test did not change the final grades very much.

 

Jaap van der Vegt

 

Module 8: Modelling and Analysis of Stochastic processes.

There are three variants of the module "Modelling and Analysis of Stochastic processes" for the study programs AM (Applied Mathematics), IEM (Industrial Engineering & Management) and CE (Civil Engineering). The AM-students first followed Stochastic Models (+ project) for 5 weeks together with IEM-students, then Markov Chains and Project Stochastic Simulation for 4 weeks (both for AM-students only), and finally a Multidisciplinary Project during the last two weeks, together with IEM- and CE-students. The module followed the same structure as the year before, but we also applied some changes.

This year we used one integrated set of slides for the introductory lectures on Markov chains in Stochastic Models (with IEM) and the more advanced lectures later on (AM only), so that students could study ahead during the first part, and could better see the context of the more advanced material.

Another change was that Stochastic Simulation was now fully taught by dr. Van Ommeren. This went well and students liked this part. Some aspects can be improved, e.g., there was no time for feedback on the end result. Also the planning of the first week seems to be too tight. After last years’ evaluations we already enhanced this, but we will look into this once more to ensure that students have sufficient time to adequately prepare for the first two deadlines.

From the students’ perspective, the main differences w.r.t. last year were probably in the Multidisciplinary project. First, with last years’ evaluation in mind, we decided to reorganize the supervision process, and we are satisfied with the outcome: students were more enthusiastic about the project. They succeeded in meeting the challenge of turning a large and newly formed group of students with different backgrounds into a co-operating team in a short time period. Also AM-students were generally successful in finding a suitable role between -and co-operating with- their IEM/CE team members. Most AM-students were (partly) involved in the techniques they learnt in Stochastic Models: queueing models and dynamic programming. Partly this may have been due to another difference w.r.t. last year: we asked students more explicitly to study aspects of the problem for which these solution methods are applicable. In contrast to last year, the emphasis was no longer put on simulation (using the software Plant Simulation from Siemens, as taught to IEM and CE students). This year, the project teams utilized the whole range of analysis and problem solving tools taught during this module.

Our overall impression of this module was that things went relatively smoothly, also w.r.t. the cooperation between AM-, IEM- and CE-teachers, and that the module was doable for AM-students, as also indicated in the evaluation reports. The main point of attention is related to the planning of Stochastic Simulation, as mentioned above, but we may need a few more adjustments to lower the burden on some of the teachers, who currently have very short deadlines for grading exams and project reports

Finally, I think everybody involved in teaching this module (well over 10 people...) can be proud that students indicate they were happy with this module and learned a lot!

 

Werner Scheinhardt, Martijn Mes & Kasper Zuilekom.

 

Module 12.

Module 12 is the final module of the Applied Mathematics bachelor programme. This module was organized for the first time, and generally went well.

The students spend time on Reflection on Mathematical Research II, Complex Function Theory, and their Bachelor assignments. These Bachelor assignments had several new aspects: students do the assignment individually, and each has to write his/her final report in the format of a scientific paper. For this, we organized a lecture on writing a mathematical paper in the first week of the module. Organizing this took more time than we anticipated, so we had to postpone the lecture by several weeks.

Theory of Complex Functions took place in the first six weeks. That in itself was okay. However, it would have been better if the reflection part in this module would have been completed by week 6. Then in the last four weeks students could have worked full time on their Bachelor assignments. We are looking into the possibility to realise this next year.

In week number ten, some students had a resit of module 11. This turned out not to be a convenient planning for the end of the bachelor assignment. Next year the resits of module 11 will probably be scheduled in Week 29 or 30 (second half of July).

The reactions of students were that the information about the final presentations was not very clear. Of course, we shall improve this for the next year. Some students had the feeling that supervisors have different ideas about their task as supervisor. Next year we will provide clear instructions to the supervisors about their role.

At the end of the quarter, the students presented their results at the Bachelor conference. Each student gave a pitch, and thereafter during a poster session there was time for discussions and questions. This event was, from our point of view, very successful. We are very proud of the students, their results and their presentations!

 

Brigit Geveling & Judith Timmer

 

Evaluation MasterMath courses

For all students studying the master Applied Mathematics, at least a number of courses organized by the national organization MasterMath must be completed. Most Mondays, the students travel to Utrecht to follow the lectures together with students from Mathematics studies from all over the Netherlands. Because the courses are (usually) not given at the University of Twente, the evaluation of such courses is different. Below is a short outline of the care taken to improve the courses each year. Every semester, after all MasterMath courses have been finished, every student gets a link to fill in an online evaluation. These evaluates give a score to the lecturer(s), the lectures, the accommodation, the content of the course and the exams. Also, textual feedback can be given. After the evaluation has been filled in by most students, the lecturer(s) receive the results. He/She gives feedback on the results and writes a short reaction on improving the course for next year. The results and reactions are then presented to each Education Committee (OLC) of the participating studies in the Netherlands. Also, from each OLC, one or more student attends the central evaluation. There, all evaluations and reactions are considered: Is the evaluation positive enough? Should the course stay as it is? Has the lecturer(s) taken enough care to improve the course? Are there enough/too many students in the course?

Last week I attended such a central evaluation. I will give a short outline of the things we have spoken about and the results. All courses of the second semester of ’15-’16 have been evaluated. Next, currently running courses such as Continuous Optimization have been discussed. For example video recordings of the lectures were requested by the students, but this is not possible because the University of Utrecht does not have enough manpower to give that service. Another solution is being researched. Also, the new website of MasterMath has been discussed to find points where it could be improved.

Finally, I would like to focus your attention on the importance of the evaluations. In some cases, a very low number of participants (<20% or <5) had filled in the evaluation. This gives no way to determine if there is anything wrong with the course, or if anything can be improved, because all numbers are insignificant. Please fill in the evaluations of all courses you take, so there is concrete material to improve the course.

 

On behalf of the Education Committee (OLC), Hidde Wieringa.