Tools v. Talents

I am finishing a class for math majors on communication skills. Our main concern is communication of math ideas, but I decided to let the students express other concerns, I had students writing about the Army, Music, and some other subjects, mainly mathematics and its applications, though.

I can teach the use of tools, which is a more modest goal, I cannot teach them how to write; I can try, but given that this is not a college level writing program, like the one at the University of Iowa. I didn't even try. I invited them of course to read my posts. You can read them in Spanish at: "Habilidades para la Comunicación de las Ideas."


My goal was to make them write and read as much as they had time for these class credits. On the other hand, we spent class time going over lower level tool learning online. Everybody got a blog in blogspot.com, wrote a book with , and made a presentation, most of them in PowerPoint, but there were other presentation tools used also.

I prefer to teach tool use, than develop talents. I feel the most modest goal is easier to fulfill, and I hope that the ones with talent; take off and become good communicators of mathematical ideas.

Now I have to grade their papers, the deadline was last Thursday night.