The teaching of discrete mathematics is an important part of the undergraduate computing curriculum. It is used to introduce students to a number of theoretical issues in computer science and also to teach skills and knowledge that they need in other parts of their courses. At UCLAN discrete mathematics is taught as part of a module called “Problem Solving". This module is delivered to all the first year undergraduates whether they are doing degree foundation degree or HND courses.
The experience of the lecturers teaching on this module is that every year a fair number of first year students express dismay at having to study maths “again”. The reasons for this negative response vary but are often that students feel maths is not core to their learning experience that they came to university to study computing not maths that they haven’t done maths for ages and have (happily) forgotten much of it and anyway how is it relevant to computing?
