MATLAB for Teaching

I occasionally get involved in activities at MathWorks that aren't strictly focused on development. These activities often include interacting with customers, giving seminars, writing articles, for example. Early this summer, for instance, I spent a little bit of time creating a webinar about using MATLAB for Teaching. I tried to design it with the goal of reaching people already familiar with MATLAB as well as those who are not yet acquainted with it.

For those of you already using MATLAB, whether for teaching or not, the earlier demo in the webinar is fairly rudimentary, since I give an introductory demo of MATLAB, including numerical calculations, visualization, finding information, and using the editor to create an M-file.

Even for those of you not new to MATLAB, you may find the latter part interesting. I show a rich example, motivated by the work of Professor Joseph M. Mahaffy of San Diego State University. The example illustrates how to estimate the physical characteristics of a spring pendulum. It's an example of how you might connect work in the laboratory with analyzing the collected data, incorporating mathematical modeling and visualization, common denominators for MATLAB users. Along the way I also use cell mode execution, a technique that allows the student to interactively test out various parameters. And I show the published report, a way to share the results without writing a separate report.