USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN UNDERGRADUATE MATH COURSES IN A SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE SETTING

Technology has become an essential part of education, starting with early introduction of calculators at school, use of computers in general and specific software to enhance the learning experience and to open new areas of mathematical knowledge.
There are different advantages and disadvantages in the use of technology and specifically computer programs in mathematics undergraduate education. In our presentation we will describe our experience using such software as Excel, SPSS, Maple and MatLab teaching Statistics, Linear Algebra and Mathematical Modeling in Natural Sciences courses, what results we achieved, how it worked compared to the traditional methods of teaching these courses, and what difficulties we ran into.
We will also describe our experience in teaching these courses in a very special setting of a small Liberal Arts college that also has its strong and weak sides in the use of technology while teaching mathematics. We will investigate the ways we can make the experience of the use of technology in undergraduate math education for this specific population of students to be more beneficial and balanced.