Re: learning calculus through mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg108046] Re: learning calculus through mathematica
- From: Helen Read <hpr at together.net>
- Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 04:04:02 -0500 (EST)
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- Reply-to: read at cems.uvm.edu
On 3/5/2010 4:33 AM, David Park wrote: > Certainly not every student should be learning Mathematica at the earliest > possible age. But maybe those who are seriously interested in a technical > career and are motivated should. Maybe it wouldn't be a part of regular > secondary school education, but be done on their own, or in math clubs, or > via mentoring over the Internet. > > Maybe it's true that CAS have not made a significant positive impact in > technical education. Does that mean people should give up? Maybe we haven't > properly learned how to use them yet. When new technologies come in they are > often used to just make the old approaches more efficient. Usually what is > needed is entirely new approaches. Instead of mass lectures and mass exams, > maybe there should be more self study, more mentoring and more mathematical > essay writing. As things stand now I have the sneaky suspicion that students > just don't know Mathematica well enough and it is another obstacle to > getting through the course. I teach my calculus students Mathematica more or less by immersion, while they are learning calculus. We use it routinely throughout the course, and every one of them is competent at using it by the middle of the semester; it really only takes a couple of weeks to get them up and running. The very weakest students might think of Mathematica as an obstacle, but even they are mostly OK with it, especially now that we have the Classroom Assistant palette, which eases the learning curve a great deal. I have the good fortune of teaching in a classroom (we have two such rooms) equipped with a computer for each student, however, as well as . This means we can use Mathematica any time we want. Often times I will introduce a topic, do some chalk-and-talk, then give the class some examples to work on with the aid of Mathematica, and let them discover a lot of things by doing the examples. Then we'll discuss the examples afterward, and do some additional chalk-and-talk analysis. Or sometimes I'll give them pencil-and-paper exercises to work on, and have them check their work in Mathematica. I know this is all anecdotal, but I do find a lot of value in this, and I think my students do too. -- Helen Read University of Vermont
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