Courses can be found here: http://netmath.uiuc.edu/courses.php

Students who:
* Want to learn actively for themselves (self-starters).
* Like to learn visually.
* Like to learn by experimenting with something rather than reading or hearing about it.
* Want to learn math but feel that traditional teaching has been inadequate for their needs.
* Like to work with others in teams or partnerships.

Students who abhor computer interaction or are auditory learners.

Follow-up studies done by the UIUC College of Engineering departments at Illinois indicate that former C&M students are fully competitive in these courses. Many C&M students have gone onto graduate school in engineering and science (Illinois, Cal Tech, MIT, Cal-Berkeley, Texas, Minnesota, etc). Others are in medical schools. Many have excellent jobs in the business world (Intel, Caterpillar, Pixar, Ford, Motorola, Wolfram Research, etc). Others are teaching in high school. Many C&M students have opted to go on to minor in mathematics thanks to their early C&M experience.

Not at all. No previous Mathematica training is required or expected. Students learn to use the Mathematica code gradually as they progress through the courses. The overwhelming majority (85% as measured by survey) of new C&M students with no previous Mathematica experience report they are comfortable within two weeks.

The answer to each of these questions is yes. In fact at Illinois about 40-50% of the students in each of these courses consist of newcomers.

In the past ten years, the importance of mathematics in the life sciences has been growing at at a fast clip. Realizing this, Professor Sondra Lazarowitz of the School of Life Sciences in 1991 noted that Life Science students had a very poor impression of calculus and often slid by with a C or worse. When she asked them why, they said that there was little in the standard calculus course for them. They felt it was a course for engineers only. It did not connect with their professional plans.
BioCalc was created to address this issue. BioCalc is the Calculus&Mathematica version of Calculus 1 tailored to meet the needs of life science students through the study of many life science models. Sudents in BioCalc experience first hand the vivid connection between calculus and the life sciences.They no longer ask."what's this stuff good for?"
Professor Philippe Tondeur, chair of the Department of Mathematics at UIUC has said.:BioCalc has proved to be very successful."

Sure. Many BioCalc students have gone on to do very well in C&M sections of Calc2, Calc3, Differential Equations and Linear Algebra.

Mathematics. In C&M courses, the computer is only a tool.

Almost as much as they want. Attached to each C&M campus class is an instructor and an undergraduate class assistant. About 2/3 of the C&M class meetings are in labs in which the instructors and class assistants work one-on-one with their students. To get a consultation during lab time, all a student has to do it to raise a hand. Everyone gets to know each other in a way impossible in the lecture model of teaching, Frequently the friendships built in C&M extend way beyond C&M itself.

Many former students report back that C&M experience is a big plus in their careers. For example, former C&M student Brad Winemiller is a Render TD for Pixar Animations Studios in Richmond, CA. Brad puts it this way: "I wouldn't be doing this stuff if it weren't for those classes. It's all math and working together with other people." Former C&M NetMath distance education student Paul Emyard is a Network analyst for Chevron Oil. He says: "While higher level mathematics does not come normally into play in my day to day job, the analytical thinking skills I've learned [in C&M] sure do. I am now known among my peers as the guy you want to ask if you have a math-related problem. Taking the C&M NetMath classes has got the attention of my management and I feel that it has helped my credibility with them immensely."

Experience has shown that C&M students learn more when they work in teams of two or three. Students working alone seem to miss a lot of things that teams tend not to miss. C&M labs tend to be noisy places; the sound is the sound of learning. When folks talk together about math (or about anything else), they learn together and they learn more. This is one reason modern businesses usually assign work to teams and not to individuals.

C&M students can become:
* C&M campus class assistants who help the instructor teach and grade.
* NetMath internet distance education mentors who are class assistants but do their work remotely via the internet rather than in the campus labs.
Hiring is based on performance in previous C&M courses and ability to deal with students. The advantages you get:
* You get paid for what you do.
* Through fielding student questions and/or grading you learn the material really well.
* The personal skills needed for these jobs are valued in the business world. Showing these jobs on your resume gives you an advantage in the job market.

"What's this stuff good for?" is a FAQ in standard mathematics courses. But this question is rarely asked by C&M students. The reason is that in C&M courseware each new idea is is accompanied by a solid application chosen to promote student interest and to put the new idea in a concrete context many students need in order to learn.

The C&M computer-based text is full of successful Mathematica code which can be copied, pasted and edited by the student anytime the student wants to. This fact minimizes the need to learn lots of Mathematica code and makes C&M courseware easier to navigate than possible with a calculator. But the role of copying and pasting play a much larger role than this. Copying and pasting is a high order skill. To use it well, the student must know when and what to copy, what to edit and how the results will be interpreted. This intellectually heavy activity separates the math of C&M from the programming of Mathematica. The outcome: Good copying, pasting and editing reinforces mathematical understanding.

No. C&M students are fully engaged in underlying mathematical ideas. Dr. Francis Sullivan, Director of the Computing Laboratory of the Institute for Defense Analysis says this about C&M calculus courses: "For me the wonderful thing about C&M is that it concentrates on what calculus is about."

Typical C&M tests are pencil and paper-based. And hand calculations that will fit on the back of an envelope are often found on these tests. C&M students are urged to use the calculational device most appropriate for the problem. Sometimes hand calculations are the most appropriate calculational device.

Hand calculations are a part of all C&M courses - so much so that the 1995 Park-Traverse study concluded that C&M calculus students can do hand calculations (derivatives, integrals etc.) on a par with students in corresponding standard math courses. The same study also concluded that C&M students have a stronger conceptual background than students in corresponding standard courses. C&M students know that math is much more than a collection of rote hand calculations to be memorized.

C&M Mathematica graphics make calculator plots seem primitive. And in C&M, you get more vivid colorful graphics than found in any printed text. Also, in C&M you are not limited to the graphics chosen for a printed text. As a C&M student said: " I've been studying math for years and doing very well on it. But I never knew what I was studying until you got me on this computer and I could see it."