I am a serious advocate of the use of technology in the classroom. The thing I have noticed the most as an instructor is student's inability or comfortability with technology. Outside of using the internet or their mobile devices, many students have never had experience programming, using an advanced calculator, or computational software.
To meet this need I always include use of at least one technology tool in any course, whether that is the use of LaTeX, checking calculations with Mathematica, or graphing with a calculator or MATLAB.
Recently, I have also become interested in use of open source tools and programming languages as many institutions (and therefore their students) cannot afford the expensive licenses for proprietary software.
For students to be successful in their work world it is incredibly important that they gain meaningful experience using technology just as a mathematician would, no matter the student's level. Some of these resources are provided below.
I have started to incorporate teaching LaTeX into my teaching in higher level math courses like Calculus 3, Linear Algebra, and Differential Equations.
I have found that requiring students to type their work, they are not only able to develop their mathematical writing skills, but also improve their understanding of the material. With online compilers like Overleaf, which are free for students, I can get them up and running quickly.
To streamline my efforts I provide example documents and templates for students to layout their work. This allows them to focus on their writing and learning basic syntax instead of formatting an entire document.
Example LaTeX Templates and documents can be found at the provided links.
This document demonstrates many of the basic environments and formatting students may need. This document is geared specifically for transitions courses like analysis, abstract algebra, or introductory numerical analysis courses.
The following is a generic homework template I set up for students wanting to use LaTeX to type their assignments. This provides a basic layout for students to use.
When teaching specific courses, I always design special templates for my students. This not only ensures consistency in their submissions but also removes the guess work in what is expected in their submissions. A few samples are provided below.
Beamer (Presentation) Template
Basic paper template
Scientific computing Template incorporating code and output files
Through teaching Scientific Computing, both the course and the lab, I have developed script files that can be used to teach basic programming skills in either MATLAB or Spyder, a Python IDE.
Please see my course materials for Scientific Computing found at the following links: Math 3340 Intro to Scientific Computing and Math 3341 Intro to Scientific Computing Lab