1. Introduction to Mathematica
By Jason Gregersen
To Get Started:
Go to the website:
Open Mathematica from your desktop
My name is Jason Gregersen and I run a Mathematica based Calculus Lab at Michigan Technological University. We are a small but respected Engineering school in the upper peninsula of Michigan. We run three core Calculus courses at MTU, (I, II, III) Attached to each of these courses is a one credit lab where we teach our students how to use Mathematica and then use it to extend their understanding of Calculus as well as their ability to use it. Our feeling is that using this tool in those courses adds creativity and authenticity. It provides a way for the students to explore ideas on their own as well as providing them an industry level computational tool. Not only that but because of the incredible breadth of the Wolfram language, once students understand the basic coding structure they can really use their knowledge to do powerful things in almost any field.
I am getting exciting….

2. Goals In this workshop you will learn: How to use Mathematica
How and why we teach Mathematica to our students
The power of and breadth of the Wolfram language.

3. Introduction to Mathematica
Cells
Evaluation
Storing variables and defining functions
Plotting
Manipulate
And more ……
Help, syntax rules,

4. Teaching Calculus with Mathematica
Lab content can be broken down into three types:
Functionality: we teach them code to compute things they need to compute.
Exporatory: we provide computational exercises that guide them to some realization.
Visualization: We provide code, or instructions for code to visually represent and important concept
Let’s look at some examples.

5. Numerical Integration Convergence

6. Why we teach Mathematica
Relatively easy to get started with and work with
Symbolically feels like familiar math
Visually stunning (wolfram demonstrations)
It is a real tool…..
Allows students a language to program with
And .. Image processing, data set, raspberry pi
Symbolically looks like familiar math

7. Current Student Projects
Pi programming
3D printing
Machine Learning
And …..
The point here isn’t to do all these projects, but that we are giving students a tool not just for Calculus, but rather an industry level computational tool that they can use to explore a 1000 different personal interests.

8. Thank your Time (Please use the app to provide feedback)
Jason Gregersen