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L’Hospital’s Weight Problem: Testing the Boundaries Between Mathematics and Physics and Between Application and Modelling

  • University of Montreal

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesBook Chapterpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Although this classical optimisation problem can be considered an application, some of the difficulties it brings to students have to do with modelling. We show how an activity, designed from this problem and trialled in a transitional mathematics course of a technical engineering school in Montreal, allows students to experience, within the goals and practical boundaries of the course, some elements of the modelling process and to develop skills useful for that purpose. As such, it can serve as inspiration for gradually introducing modelling considerations in content-driven mathematics courses that do not traditionally allot time for exploring open situations. The crossing into physics, despite the strong potential envisioned at the design stage, proved to be more difficult to implement.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInternational Perspectives on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Modelling
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media B.V.
Pages59-69
Number of pages11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Publication series

NameInternational Perspectives on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Modelling
ISSN (Print)2211-4920
ISSN (Electronic)2211-4939

!!!Keywords

  • Application
  • Function composition
  • Interdisciplinarity
  • Interpretation
  • Mathematisation
  • Modelling paradigms
  • Modelling process
  • Scaffolding
  • Validation

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