Abstract:
Students in our course learn to use spreadsheets to address more complex problems than they would do with formulas.  They create many spreadsheets and use some more complicated spreadsheets (created by the teachers and from various financial planning websites)  to address multi-step problems in personal finance.  They fit linear, quadratic, and exponential models to data, interpret the parameters, and answer various questions using those models.    In solving  many other types of problems relevant to topics in a math for liberal arts course, they use spreadsheets as "smart scratch paper."

Presentation Slides   pdf

Slides with more details about the class  Longer pdf

General description of course

Course Materials: 
Math for Modeling
Lippman's Math in Society