Enhancing Student Learning of Differential Equations through Technology

Abstract

In this work, we review and share some useful technology for mathematics educators that can help to enhance their pedagogical practices to motivate students to improve their further understanding of differential equations after an initial exposure to the topic in an undergraduate class. In particular, we present some innovative ways to employ technology tools to motivate the learning of students and their appreciation of the applications of differential equations to real-world problems. The objective is to engage the students in exploration to solve differential equations using technology. This work presents a benchmark example involving modelling epidemics as a real-world problem and how to engage students who have basic familiarity with differential equations through literate programming. Visualization of the results using graphical user interface is also presented. The readers are also exposed to a novel free network computing laboratory called NCLab which is applied to a variety of applications involving differential equations.