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All | General | Math Undergrad Course and Curriculum Committee | PAMS Undergraduate Academic Advisers Committee

Tuesday November 13, 2007

MA 405 assessment/discussion

We are currently assessing MA 405. Dr. Misra's email solicition for comments from faculty appears below, followed by a proposed course outline. Several faculty responded to this solicitation, and their comments will appear here as Kailash has time to summarize them.

-----------email soliciting comments----------------

Dear Colleagues

You are receiving this email since you either taught MA405 or taught a course which has MA405 as a prerequisite within last three years.

The MUCCC (Math. Undergraduate Course and Curricum Committee) is reassessing MA405 this year since last assessment was done more than 10 years ago (in 1989). During this period several concerns have been raised by faculty from within and outside of the Mathematics department. During the current assessment the MUCCC would like to address those concerns. Note that this is a core course for Math. majors and some graduate students outside the mathematics department take this course for credit. In the attached draft of the course content the MUCCC has agreed on the core content of this course with some flexibility (four
lessons) for the instructor to choose appropriate topic of their interest. We hope that this will help maintain the unifirmity and rigor.

MUCCC requests your comments on the attached draft on or before Nov. 9, 2007. Please email your comments to me (misra@math.ncsu.edu).

Thanks for your kind cooperation.

Best regards,
Kailash Misra
Member, MUCCC

--------------------proposed outline (attachment to email)--------

                COURSE OUTLINE- Draft-1

MA405--- Introduction to Linear Algebra and Matrices

Text Book: Linear Algebra with applications, 7th Edition, by S. Leon

Prerequisite: MA241

Co-requisite: MA242

The following schedule is for MWF sections. It should be modified appropriately for TTh sections.

LESSON    SECTIONS        TOPICS AND COMMENTS

1-3        1.1, 1.2        Linear systems of equations, elementary row
                    operations, reduction to row echelon form and
                    Gaussian eliminations.

4-6        1.3, 1.4        Definition of a matrix, addition, scalar
                    multiplication, matrix multiplication and properties,
                    special matrices, elementary matrices, inverses,
                    transpose and LU-decomposition. Also mention
                    briefly about partitioned matrices and their multi-
                    plications without too much details as in 1.5.

7                    review chapter 1

8                    Test 1

9-11        2.1-2.3            Determinants and their properties, formula for
                    inverse, Cramer?s rule.

12-14        3.1-3.3            Vector space, subspaces, spanning set, linear
                    independence

15-17        3.4-3.6            Basis, dimension, coordinate matrix, transition
                    matrix, fundamental subspaces associated with
                    a matrix such as row space, column space and null
                    space, rank and nullity of a matrix.

18                    review chapters 2 and 3

19                    Test 2

20-22        4.1-4.3            Definition and examples of linear transformations,
                    matrix representations of linear transformations
                    from Rn to Rm, similarity between two
                    nxn-matrices, (Remark: restrict this chapter to
                    only n-spaces. Mention that similar matrices
                    represent the same linear transformation and
                    motivate the concept of diagonalization.)

23-25        6.1, 6.3        Eigenvalues and eigenvectors, diagonalization
                    of a square matrix, determination of eA for a
                    diagonalizable matrix. (Remark: Although we
                    restrict our focus to real eigenvalues, mention
                    that we can have complex eigenvalues for a matrix
                    with real entries.)

26                    Review chapter 4 and 6.1, 6.3

27                    Test 3

28 -29        5.1,5.2            Scalar product in Rn , Orhogonal subspaces.

30-33        5.4-5.6            Real Inner Product spaces, Orthogonal and
                    Orhonormal sets, Gram-Schmidt Orthogonalization
                    Process, QR-decomposition and least square
                    Problems. (Remark: Point out the difference for
                    Complex inner products, Derive the normal
                    Equation as in 5.3 and then apply QR-decompo-
                    -sition to simplify.)

34        6.4            Diagonalization of real symmetric matrices by
                    orthogonal matrices. Show that the eigenvalues
                    of a real symmetric matrix are real and its eigen-
                    vectors corresponding to distinct eigenvalues are
                    orthogonal. (Remark: Define Hermitian matrices
                    and point out that they have similar properties.)

35                    Review Chapter 5 and 6.4

36                    Test 4

37-40                    Related topics choosen by instructor.
                    (For example, 6.2, 6.5 and/or 6.6)

41-42                    Review for final exam.

Posted by scroggs ( Nov 13 2007, 10:39:25 AM EST / Nov 13 2007, 10:38:39 AM EST ) Permalink Comments [3]
Trackback: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/trackback/mathprogram/Weblog/ma_205_new_course

MA 405 as a pre-requisite for MA 407

The proposed minor action to add MA 405 as a pre-requiste for MA 407 passed the PAMS UAAC today (11/13/07).

Posted by scroggs ( Nov 13 2007, 10:24:00 AM EST / Nov 13 2007, 10:22:44 AM EST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/trackback/mathprogram/Weblog/ma_405_as_a_pre

Sunday November 04, 2007

Notes from Oct 24

Notes from our meeting
Wednesday, October 24

In attendance were

John Griggs
Kailash Misra
Sandy Paur
Jeff Scroggs
Jack Silverstein
Mike Singer
Bob White

Next meeting:
Nov 28, 1:30-2:30, HA 222

The committee voted in favor of adding MA 405 as a prerequisite to MA 407. (5 in favor, 1 abstain)

Progress on MA 205 was reviewed -- consultation with other departments has been added. (MUCCC already voted to support this action.)

Suggestions to modify the assessment document into something appropriate for our external review were provided. Samples from PY and CH have been provided.

John Griggs anticipates proposing a new GER class related to the mathematics of sports.

Posted by scroggs ( Nov 04 2007, 10:34:44 AM EST / Nov 04 2007, 10:33:50 AM EST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/trackback/mathprogram/Weblog/notes_from_oct_24

Notes from Sept 25

Our first meeting this semester was
9-10am
Tuesday, Sept 25
HA 222

In attendance was

Jeff Scroggs
Kailash Misra
Jack Silverstein
Mike Singer
Bob White

Action items -- reserve the next meeting date, and members that missed need to indicate how they plan to contribute to the tasks. More information appears below.

Notes from the meeting

1. We selected Wednesday @ 1:30 to meet.

Please reserve October 24 @ 1:30 for the next meeting (if you have a conflict, suggest another Wednesday)

2. Form subgroups include
Renew MA 405, with an idea to a revised course description
Misra

      BA degree proposal (discussion and curriculum proposal)
      BS revision (discussion and curriculum change, if needed)
Misra and Singer

      review of MA GER courses
as needed, once university committees provide guidelines

      External Review preparation
Silverstein and Scroggs

Members needing to select tasks: Charlton, Griggs, and Paur

ex-officio member, Tran, only attends meetings

3. MA 205 proposal passed unanimously pending favorable comments being collected during the consultations. A minor clarification to the Resources statement was proposed. (forms are online at www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/w/white/www/white/mamac/Links.htm)

4. ABM for FM/AMA proposal passed unanimously. MA 407 and MA 405 will be switched in the 10-semester display.

Posted by scroggs ( Nov 04 2007, 10:33:45 AM EST / Nov 04 2007, 10:33:19 AM EST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/trackback/mathprogram/Weblog/notes_from_sept_25

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