MTH 440/540 is the centerpiece of UMass Dartmouth’s Professional Preparation Program for Math, Science, and Engineering students. Graduate and undergraduate students registered for this course work together to study and solve problems provided by companies, local research groups, and local non-profit organizations.
The course satisfies University Study 5-B (Learning through Engagement)
Clients for Fall semester 2018 included:
- Jing BI, Dassault Systèmes, Johnston, RI
- Jinhee Lee, Hongik University, South Korea
- Suzanne Melloni, UMass Dartmouth Director, Advising, Support and Planning Office.
- Richard Bellizzi, Nye Lubricants, Fairhaven, MA
Course Overview
The course will focus on learning, analyzing, and attempting to solve challenging real world research problems. The problems are selected from multidisciplinary projects solicited from various research groups at UMass Dartmouth, from local and national industries/universities/ labs, and from crowdsourcing websites. Developing skills to utilize computer algebra systems and problem solving environment software to rapidly prototype, quantify, visualize, and help understand or gain insights into the problems are the main objectives of this course.
Course-Specific Learning Outcomes
Students will experience hands-on training to analyze, study, and solve challenging research problems, where solutions are not fully understood or not yet available. Faculty instructors/advisors will help students in developing skills to think out of the box, to search relevant literature, to articulate ideas and discoveries through presentations and technical writing, and to build strong working relationships with their peers with different level of expertise as teams. Learning to honestly disseminate results to promote reproducible research is an expected outcome of this course.
University Studies Learning Outcomes
Students will experience discovery-based learning though engagement in research activities for solving real world problems. They apply techniques and methods learned from previous math, science, and engineering courses and the relations between them to help understand these problems and to propose new approaches. Through multidisciplinary collaborations among peers from different majors, and intensive communication with the industry, lab, or university clients that presented the problems, students shall develop skills in translating and communicating ideas and gain a unique understanding of how to work with people from different backgrounds and levels of expertise.