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Stephanos Venakides

Professor of Mathematics
Mathematics
Box 90320, Durham, NC 27708-0320
120 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708, Durham, NC 27708
Office hours Tuesday and Thursday 3:00-4:00pm  

Teaching Activities


I was coordinator and taught one section of MATH353 "Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations" in the spring and fall terms. I also taught a minicourse on Micromagnetics in the spring. 

I had a remarkable experience in the fall with MATH353. In the PDE part, rather than following the traditional route of first  teaching the parts of a general theory and then putting them together, I started with the general theory and showed how it naturally splits into constituent parts. With no changes in the grade distribution over the six sections, the number of A s in my section nearly doubled and I received many student thanks.  I conjecture that this approach offers more motivation. I will pursue this in my teaching of MATH453 next term.