Back of the Envelope Calculation (BotE)

    Year
    2011
    Title
    Back of the Envelope Calculation (BotE)
    Topic(s)
    technical calculation, approximation
    Author(s)
    Susannah Howe, Smith College, showe at smith.edu
    Summary
    Students have individual assignment to do a rough calculation related to their project (or course or larger activity, etc). Emphasizes the need to do rough approximate calculations, making assumptions where needed. I have given students a few days to do it, but when I presented this at the 2010 Capstone Conference someone suggested it could also be done with a very short (10 minute) turnaround. I use it to get students diving into the technical depth of their projects early on, before they fully know the territory - but it could be used in other ways too. Main thing is that it is actually done on the *back of an envelope* - this constrains how much the students can write and also adds some humor.
    Other Info
    • Audience: any - could be a whole course, could be a team on a project. Works across all years.
    • Strengths
      • Applicable to many courses & contexts.
      • Teaches students about the process and value of completing rough calculations/estimates.
      • Forces students to deal with unknowns and make assumptions.
    • Weaknesses
      • Needs some structuring to identify an appropriate back-of-the-envelope calculation. More advanced students can often identify and frame these themselves; other students may need more assistance.
    • Variants
      • Could be done over a period of a few days or as a 5-15 minute assignment in class or in a team meeting.
      • Could do a pre-activity with teams or a whole class to brainstorm possible back-of-the-envelope calculations that apply to their project or the current course material. Then can divide up that list, assigning different calculations to different people.
      • Can return to the back-of-the-envelope calculations throughout the class; can also refer to the concept of BotE in the context of new calculations and students will better understand having done an initial one.
    Created
    Fri May 18, 2012 09:21:49 EDT
    LastModif
    Fri May 18, 2012 09:21:49 EDT

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