Dear ACS colleagues:
     Here is some additional information on the S02 offering of the modeling course.

Audience, S02 class
     Our department has been considering revising the lower level classes, and it may be that the lower level modeling will become one of math course taken by pre-service teachers. Currently, however, pre-service teachers take Math Concepts, a survey course, and Geometry, a theorem-proving course. Math Concepts is a good course, but the topics change with each instructor, and a modeling course seems much more in line with the NCTM standards. Other non-majors take statistics, which is taught at a very elementary level. Perhaps because of the competition with these courses, and perhaps because non-majors tend not to know what modeling is, only three students enrolled in the modeling course in S02. For those three, the course was a tremendous success.
     The students varied in background. Two had excellent math abilities, one was fairly anxious and had a mixed background. The latter said he received an A in high school calculus because he was an athlete and the teacher, a coach, always gave an A to an athlete. Either the student misjudged his own abilities (although his calculus background and use of logs and exponentials was very poor) or this sad story is true. He also said that he really liked the modeling course and had learned a lot. The text was good for these students but not for such a low level course in general. With just three students, I had the tremendous advantage of pacing the course to suit them. I also got immediate feedback for any materials I had created.
     In any such course of reasonable size, the instructor can host excellent discussions about problem solving techniques. It was great to set the students going on a problem, either in small groups or individually, and then compare approaches. See, for example, the different approaches used on several of the files available to you.
     I look forward to exchanging information with you on this course.

Student comments about the use of technology
On the final survey, I asked: "Did the technology help you learn/work with the class material? Please explain." Here are the responses.
"I enjoyed working with excel and becoming more proficient in a program that just about all businesses use"
"Yes, the technology was great, without it I wouldn't have had a chance."
"definitely, it made up for some of the background information I had forgotten that was necessary for solving problems"

Technology Logistics
We met in a computer lab, so the students were on the computers every class day. Each student uploaded files daily and set permissions for file sharing, which I encouraged. The exams were also taken in the lab, using any files and technology available. Students uploaded their solutions for me to grade. This became a bit of a problem on the final. Graduating seniors took their exams early, and I had them remove their files right after I got them, before the other student took his final.