Introductory Course Syllabus

      Session 1: Getting Started with Mathematica
      Cells
      Opening and Saving Files
      Input vs. Standard Notation
      Sample Mathematica Commands and their Output
      Cutting and Pasting: The Nike Approach
      Getting Help and Finding Mathematica Resources
      Common Errors

      Session 2: Functions, Plotting, Animation and Manipulation
       Defining Functions
      The Plot Function and Its Many Options
      Pitfalls in Plotting
      The Manipulate and Animate Commands

      Session 3: Symbolic and Numeric Computation
      The Solve Command and Substitution Rules
      Expand, Simplify, Factor, Apart
      Limit, Sum and Series
      Differentiate, Integrate and NIntegrate
      DSolve and NDSolve for Differential Equations
      Iteration with NestList and Newton's Method

      Session 4: Constructing Effective Mathematica Notebooks
      Cell Styles
      Fonts, Sizes and Colors
      Cell Grouping
      Formatting Mathematical Text
      Initialization Cells
      Making a Notebook for Student Use
      Creating a Notebook for Presentation
      Creating Palettes and Setting Up Links
      Using and Creating Stylesheets
      The Option Inspector

      Session 5: Lists, Vectors, Matrices, and Sets
      Creating Lists
      List Operations
      Two High-Powered Examples
      Vectors as Lists; Matrices as Lists of Lists
      Applications to Linear Algebra
      Sets as Lists
      Accessing and Generating External Files from within Mathematica

      Session 6: 2 & 3 Dimensional Graphics with Applications
      ParametricPlot and Polar Plots
      Three Dimensional Plots: Plot3D, ContourPlot, ParametricPlot3D
      Vector Fields
      Creating, Showing and Manipulating Graphics Objects

      Session 7: The Basics of Programming in Mathematica
      Procedural Programming
      Other Types of Programming in Mathematica
      Some Programming Examples
      From Commands to Procedure to Package

      Session 8: Teaching Issues, Loose Ends, Project Presentations
       Class-directed discussion as needed
      Mathematica loose ends: Pure functions; Map, Apply, and listability; Dynamic and its capabilities; ShowExpression and Mathematica's internal structure
      Participants are encouraged to work on, submit, and present individual projects
      There will be prizes for notebooks that:
      a) are the most impressive looking and feature-laden (STYLE)
      b) display the best mathematical and intellectual content (SUBSTANCE)



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