Jupyter Notebooks and Undergraduate Mathematics Curricula

The emergence of accessible computational technology enables a wholly different mathematical experience for university students. This poster presents the results of early efforts to incorporate Jupyter notebooks in introductory level undergraduate mathematics courses. We describe both the curriculum content and the nature of students’ mathematical tasks alterations that result from the inclusion of Jupyter in the classroom.

Our materials cover a typical three course sequence of Quantitative Reasoning, PreCalculus, and Calculus. We utilize R and Python running in the Jupyter notebooks distributed through Jupyterhub. Rather than completing many standard textbook problems, students engage in larger project oriented work that involves gathering, interpreting, and presenting both the logic and results of these investigations. The content of our courses has shifted to include alternative topics from mathematics(namely linear algebra and matrices) and a decent dose of design and data visualization. We present an outline of the courses, exemplary activities from each, and sample student work from our classrooms.