Turning math attractive to computer science students: an application-to-model approach

This paper describes an innovative approach to develop the understanding about the relevance of mathematics to computer science. The mathematical subjects are introduced through an application-to-model scheme that lead computer science students to a better understanding of why they have to learn math and learn it effectively. The authors´ approach consists of a single one semester course, taught at the first semester of the program, where the students are initially exposed to some typical computer applications. When they recognize the applications´ complexity, the instructor gives the mathematical models supporting such applications, even before a formal introduction to the model in a math course. They applied this approach at Unesp (Brazil) and the results include a large reduction in the rate of students that abandon the college and better students in the final years of the program.