By building a set of modules to teach data science in STEM courses at Dartmouth, we build a flexible and reusable set of tools and methods for faculty to enrich learning objectives through the hands-on exploration of data collection, analysis, and visualization.
DIFUSE Modules
Our team works with faculty in the sciences and social sciences to build data science learning modules for existing courses. These modules could be for a short assignment or a longer-running exercise with skill-building components. Module teams consist of 2-3 students (graduate and undergrad), one of the DIFUSE grant PI’s. We do the heavy lifting, with input from the faculty member during weekly meetings.
Modeling the Glucose Insulin System
This module consists of two assignments. The first guides students through modeling simple ODEs in Matlab, and the second, longer assignment, guides students through modeling the Glucose Insulin System in Matlab with Euler’s Method. The students are then expected to explore this model by optimizing one parameter for a given set of data using the least squares method.