Improving calculus curriculum in engineering degrees: implementation of technological applications

Abstract

The teaching of mathematics has always concerned all the professionals involved in engineering degrees. Curently students have less interest in these studies, what has caused an increase of this concern. The lack of awareness of students about the significance of mathematics in their careers, provoke the decrease of undergraduate students’ motivation, which derives in a low interest in engineering degrees. The aim of this work is that engineering students achieve a greater motivation and involvement in first academic courses, through the implementation of real and technological applications related to their degrees in the learning of mathematical concepts. To this end, the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academics years, the seminar “Applications of Multivariable Calculus in Engineering” has been held in Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (UPC), based on the teaching of Multivariable Calculus by the execution of real problems where calculus concepts are necessary to solve them. With the aim of analyzing students’ motivation and assessment of the seminar, anonymous surveys and personal interviews have been conducted. The number of attending students to the sessions in each academic year has been 16 and all of them have been participants in the surveys and interviews. The results show that students’ responses were generally positive and they agree that their motivation to the subject Multivariable Calculus has increased with the use of real applications of mathematics. The execution of practical problems with engineering applications improves the acquirement of mathematical concepts, what could imply an increase of students’ performance and a decrease of the dropout in the first academic courses of engineering degrees.