Abstract:
This paper discusses the design of a new half-term undergraduate course on Markov processes that has weekly lab exercises. The motivation for designing this course was two-fold. First, the Curriculum 2000 initiative in the University of Michigan College of Engineering has resulted in major curriculum redesign and in the introduction of halfsemester courses. Second, we wanted to create a more engaging classroom environment for teaching Markov processes. The lab exercises are designed to introduce topics to students before lecture. The exercises are intended to help students develop intuition about certain properties of Markov processes as well as to encourage students to participate actively and cooperatively in the learning process. In this paper we present the background for the course development, discuss lab designs, and give one lab exercise example.
