At both Harvard and Wellesley, student response to IDD was extremely positive. Marian Stas, a major in the Romanian Army who taught for 14 years at the Technical Academy in Bucharest, came to Harvard particularly interested in seeing how mathematics related to management and technology and reported that the ``summer program at the [Kennedy School] fulfilled my expectations in this request.'' He went on to elaborate:
Of a particular relevance to myself was the creative approach to the course, undertaken by the course coordinator, Deborah Hughes Hallett which was possible due to the way in which this course was designed. As members of the advanced group in the Summer School Program, some students had the opportunity to literally be part of the teaching process, presenting specific aspects of the Excel software package, as well as topics in mathematics. As a direct result of this approach, the level of confidence and participation of all students significantly increased throughout the whole course.I am pleased to strongly recommend the IDD-100 Course Information, Data and Decisions) taught at John F. Kennedy School of Government, for recognition as a successful innovative program in using technology in the teaching of Mathematics. I also believe that such recognition will enhance further development of this very rich teaching area in other various programs at Harvard University.
Three weeks into the current semester, many of the Wellesley students reported that they have already used what they learned in the summer program in both biology and economics. One describes what the IDD course taught her:
Using spreadsheets made me look more closely at the process involved in an equation. I had to pay attention to the meaning/role of each variable and to decide how the values should be organized on the spreadsheet.
Another wrote:
The whole [summer program] experience was wonderful and I did not even know how to use Microsoft Excel or how to do spreadsheets before the program. It helped me tremendously. I will now be using spreadsheets in the research I am doing in the Minority Mentorship Program.