Michael Drew
Neuroscience
1. Upload Documents
2. Email Kim Williams (mailto: kdwilliams@austin.utexas.edu)
3. Add comments or questions below.
Comments
We recommend listing acceptable currently offered calculus and statistics courses because Neuroscience cannot fully control whether new courses are developed. At the same time, please approach Mathematics and Statistics and Scientific Computation to explain the needs of your students to faculty working on curriculum development in these areas.
Could we instead leave out the course #'s altogether and instead provide a qualitative description, as we have done in this draft?
Please see the draft I just attached. Depending on whether the 2 new courses are developed, or when they are developed, you may be forced to select existing coursework. I hope this version keeps the intention of Neuroscience intact for the discussion next week.
Judith- Can we revise the math/stats sections as follows:
Option 1
1. Mathematics 408C
2. SSC 321 or SSC302
Option 2
1. 3 credit course in calculus that includes both differential and integral
calculus (course subject to approval by Neuroscience curriculum committee).
2. 3 credit course in probability/statistics, with coursework to include
fundamentals of probability, distribution theory, sampling models,
statistical inference, interval estimation, and hypothesis testing (course
subject to approval by Neuroscience curriculum committee).
Option 1, #1: What do students take who start in the 3 part calculus sequence, M 408N? Do you want the requirement written as M 408C or M 408N and 408S?
Option 2: This can be written as is for discussion by the college curriculum committee. But the courses described in #1 and #2 would need to be defined by course number by the deadline to complete legislation for the 2014-16 catalog. Course requirements aren't written as a description of topics. This language would be struck out by Official Publications, if it didn't happen earlier on by one of the various committees that will review the proposal.
If it will take a while for these courses to be developed, the entire requirement could be written as:
"A calculus course and a statistics course approved by the undergraduate adviser."
In catalog language, "undergraduate adviser" always means faculty adviser. Neuroscience would provide a list of acceptable course numbers and the degree audit would use the list. You may get push back for not defining which courses are approved. This wording runs counter to recent catalog trends of clearly defining requirements for students.
Thanks Judith. Just to be clear, is the following consistent with your recommendations?
Option 1
1. Mathematics 408C or M408N and M408S
2. SSC 321 or SSC302
Option 2
A calculus course and a statistics course approved by the undergraduate adviser
Judith/Kim:
We have uploaded several course inventory forms.
Michael
Our department would like to include the revamped first-year calculus/statistics sequence in our curriculum. We do not have course numbers for the revamped courses, so we included a general course description instead of course numbers. Please advise us about how to best handle this item.