Coding In the Classroom

In tech class, we discussed coding and how it can be integrated into the classroom. I am a math person, and often times people associate coding with mathematics, based on their common skills in logic, algorithmic design, and problem solving. However, for myself, to say that I developed competent skills in coding during my math degree would be a lie! I’m horrible at coding, and I don’t enjoy it at all. I do, however, believe it is an excellent resource, mode to represent your work, and tool to apply your learning in the math and science based classrooms. With a bit of motivation, I’m sure I could apply myself and learn to use it successfully and come to appreciate its implementation.

Despite my overall negative experience with coding during my undergraduate degree, I do have some memorable, somewhat positive takeaways to share.

RStudio for Statistics: In my statistics courses during my undergraduate degree, creating plot diagrams to support our data was a significant portion of coursework. Thankfully, there is a programming language called R which makes it pretty simple, even for non coding individuals, to create the plot diagrams instead of needing to do them by hand. During my undergraduate degree, I used RStudio to access the R programming language as it was organized and user friendly. Below is a video which describes why RStudio is a great option for R users:

Python’s Math Functions: During my undergraduate degree, I had to take a course on computer assisted mathematics and statistics. In this course, Python was the programming language used. This programming language made this course so much simpler because of Python’s math library! By typing something as simple as “import math” in the python console, you have access to all of the created math functions within the python language, without having to create them yourself! This is especially awesome when the goal of the course is not to be tested on the student’s ability to perform the math required for a given function (this should be done in other math courses), but rather to focus the questions on data analysis, and expose students to the different tools available to them to represent their work! Below is a video which describes how to use and access the math functions within Python!

I hope that these options described above help students that don’t have the most positive relationship with coding learn to appreciate it a bit more and realize that there are ways to use it successfully and productively in their math and science based classes!