Learning engineering to teach mathematics

Abstract

The Bologna process is a good opportunity to bring together first-year mathematics courses of engineering degrees and technology courses offered in subsequent years. In fact, the Faculty Council has decided that 20% of the credits from basic courses must be related to technological applications. To this end, during the past academic year a mathematical engineering seminar was held with each session dealing with one technological discipline. The main goal of the seminar, which relied on the presence of speakers from both mathematics and engineering departments, was to identify the most commonly used mathematical tools. Furthermore, a set of exercises and some guidelines addressed to faculty lacking an engineering background were created. Here, we present some of this material: first, a summary of the collection of exercises illustrating the use of Linear Algebra in different engineering areas such as Mechanical Engineering, Control and Automation, and second, some exercises