Draft Report

 

Background: Before 1998, the finite math course offered by the math department at the University of Arizona was the course required for business majors. However, faculty members teaching the course felt that the course did not really satisfy the needs of the business majors. The business students did not see the use of the topics being covered, in their business careers. Talks with people in the business school revealed that even they were not happy with the way the course was being taught. As a result, it was decided that to motivate the students and to get them more involved in the course, there was a need to make the course directly relevant to business matters.

 

Dr. Richard Thompson from the Math department and Dr. Chris Lamoureux from the Eller School of Business and Public Administration prepared a course that would achieve the goals of both sides. The course has been offered at the University of Arizona for the past four years. It is also offered at the Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. A few other institutions in the country are also using the course materials. Recently, the editorial board of the MAA has approved national publication of the course materials.

 

A couple of people from Wellesley College, MA did an evaluation of the course when it was first offered at the University of Arizona. We looked at the reports of this evaluation. In the document that summarized the responses of faculty to some surveys, the following things caught our attention:

1. Most of the faculty were not aware of what the Business School wants the students to learn from this course.

2.      Most of the faculty felt that though the students learned less math than in the traditional math        courses for business students, they did learn how to apply these math skills to business problems.

The faculty had a vague sense that the ability to do business problems was an important part of the course but they were unclear whether the business school's expectations were being met.  Interestingly enough, the evaluation document itself did not clearly outline what the learning goals of the course were either. From this, we felt that there was a need to articulate the learning goals of the course so that it is clear what the Business School and the Math Department want the students to get out of this course. 

 

Learning Goals: After talking to the authors of the course, we came up with the following learning goals:

 

1. To analyze a business situation and make informed decisions.
2. To use math as a tool in making a business decision.
3. To work efficiently in a group
4. To communicate effectively business decisions, along with the math used to make those decisions.
5. To use technology for math and communication.
6. To work with data sets and gather as much information as possible.
7. To increase students’ level of comfort with math so that they can deal with the math in the follow-up Statistics and Finance courses.

 

 

 

The students should get comfortable with the following math topics during the two semesters:

 

1. Random variables and basic probability distributions – binomial, exponential, uniform and normal.
2. Computation and interpretation of expected value.
3. Samples and central limit theorem.
4. Measures of central tendency such as mean, variance, and standard deviation.
5. Derivatives as rate of change and slope of tangent line.
6. Integral as area under a curve.

 

The emphasis throughout the course should be on understanding when to use the concepts and then using excel to do the actual computations (such as finding derivatives and integrals.)

 

By the end of the course, the students should be able to do the following things in Excel:

 

1.      Use database functions to extract information from a large database.

2.      Run real-life simulations.

3.      Use the graphing capabilities.

4.      Use the optimization tool. 

 

Structure of the course: The Business Math course is a two semester course, which centers around four projects from business. The projects were chosen keeping in mind the mathematical topics the students need to learn during the course. Each semester the students work on two projects in groups of three to four students. As the semester progresses, the students are taught the mathematical and the computing tools they need to analyze the project. For example, the first project deals with a commercial bank loan, in which the students need to decide whether to foreclose or to enter into a workout arrangement with a particular commercial client who has defaulted on the loan interest payments. Expected value and Bayes’ theorem are the main mathematical tools they need for this project and hence these topics are covered during the first semester. The students are also taught the use of database functions in Excel as these functions help them to analyze the records of the bank. At the end of each project, the students do an oral report and a written report on the project. The oral reports are done using power point and other technology as needed. Each semester the students take two midterms and one final exam.

 

Our plan: The course is structured so that we can assess some of the learning goals as we progress through the course. The grading of the oral and written reports helps us to assess learning goals 2, 4, and 5. The exams test the math understanding of the students. But the instructors do not get to see the students working in groups and as a result they do not observe how the students analyze the business situations to come to their decisions. The instructors only see the end result when they see the oral and written reports. To assess these important learning goals, we will administer a survey to the students who have taken both the courses, at the end of the fall semester. In this survey, we will give them a business situation which they will analyze in groups. We will observe them while they are going through this analysis. We will use a rubric which will help us assess their team work which will be taking place right there. We hope that this will help us to determine if the course is making the students efficient team workers and sharpening their analytical skills.