Teaching Mathematical Modeling: Art or Science?

  • Authors:
  • Wolfgang Wiechert

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • ICCS '02 Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Science-Part III
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Modeling and simulation skills are two core competencies of computational science and thus should be a central part of any curriculum. While there is a well-founded theory of simulation algorithms today the teaching of modeling skills bears some intrinsic problems. The reason is that modeling is still partly an art and partly a science. As an important consequence for university education the didactic concepts for teaching modeling must be quite different from those for teaching simulation algorithms. Some experiences made with a two term course on 'Modeling and Simulation' at the University of Siegen are summarized.