Teaching and Learning Mathematical Modelling

Citation

Harwood, C.J. (1999), "Teaching and Learning Mathematical Modelling", Kybernetes, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 316-317. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1999.28.3.316.4

Can you be a cybernetician or systemist without some knowledge of mathematics? Indeed can you be a scientist without a good knowledge of the subject? Many researchers still manage to produce papers with little or no mathematical content or, it would appear, any use of mathematics in their approach to problems that are inherently mathematical.

This book is about the teaching of mathematics and in particular concerns a subject of great importance in these fields ‐ mathematical modelling.

Although it is based on a conference held in 1995 at the University of Ulster it is still relevant to those who prepare courses and to those who want to learn about the subject.

Books that are based on conference proceedings are necessarily limited and usually lack continuity. In this conference some 32 papers presented at the event form its basis. Even the most determined editors are unlikely to overcome this disadvantage. Even so, they tried to bring some order into the text by dividing it into five parts: Reflections and investigations; Assessment at a tertiary level; Secondary courses and case studies; Tertiary case studies and Tertiary courses. Readers therefore who are looking to incorporate some of these courses into their own programmes may be disappointed. Many papers are mainly of a philosophical nature and others that do describe courses that sound interesting and usable are far too brief. All of which is what one would expect at a conference but the reader is at the disadvantage of not being able to ask questions for more detail or initiate a relevant discussion.

Publishers will soon realise the dangers of offering books about conference proceedings as anything other than what they really are ‐ a collection of often quite random communications from participants who have little idea of what their fellow participants intend to present. Without such interaction and, indeed, detailed planning prior to the meeting a “conference book” claiming to be anything other than a “collection of papers” is a misnomer.

Many of the case studies presented were useful and could well be part of a mathematical modelling programme. Many, however, lacked both interest and detail. The book’s title should have reflected its origin as a set of papers from a conference which however well edited could be nothing more than a collection of different presentations. That is not to say it is not a useful book to have on one’s reference shelf and to use when planning courses in this important topic.