Calculus Instruction Enhancement

Starting Fall 1997, the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Rutgers Camden will introduce an innovative approach to teaching the standard Unified Calculus courses. This updated method will be entitled Calculus Instruction Enhancement. The motivation for this curriculum reform came from recognizing that the principles and applications of Calculus must be blended in a coherent way, and that the value of applications should not be underestimated at the expense of pure theory, as they provide continuous reinforcement and understanding of the abstract ideas for the student.

The Calculus Instruction Enhancement (CIE) Project will be taught in the newly updated two-room Science Vision Complex in the Fine Arts Building. This complex consists of a workstation lab (Room 240) and a sixty-seat lecture room (Room 242). A special SROA grant enabled the acquisiton of three additional Silicon Graphics workstations (to augment the three existing SGI workstations) and one Hewlett Packard color Laser printer for Room 240, along with an SGI workstation and a Barcographics 1208S ceiling projection system for Room 242.

In Fall 1997, the newly enhanced Unified Calculus sequence (50:640:121, 122, 221) will be taught as follows:

1) Each class will meet twice a week in the sixty-seat lecture room (Rm. 242) for traditional and interactive Calculus instruction. In these lectures the abstract concepts of Calculus will be abundantly illustrated by computer-generated images using Maple and the 3D visualization/animation tool Geomview. Currently, several hundred graphics files have already been created and are available on the server; work is underway to develop further interactive applications of Calculus. This combination of structural, analytical and visual understanding will further be strengthened by making all Maple textfiles of the lectures downloadable from HERE and from HERE . Maple will also be used to illustrate various computation-intensive processes such as convergence of Riemann sum in integral Calculus.

2) In addition to the two weekly lectures, each student will sign up for one weekly Calculus Lab session in the SGI workstation lab. A Calculus instructor who is also a Maple expert will administer and supervise 15-20 students per session. Work is currently underway to compile Calculus Lab Manuals that include basic Unix and Maple commands. These will be available to students along with the new Calculus textbook in Summer 1997. Projects and topics for the Lab Manuals are carefully assembled and evaluated, based on an assortment of Maple manuals and implementation successes of various universities.

3) Information about the daily in-class activities and lab-time will be available to the students through the SGI's built-in website http://mathsgi01/~gtoth/ . The Calculus instructors will use this SGI website for homework and project assignments, announcements and e-mail.
4) Students, in their free time, will be able to download Maple textfiles to their account and view them at various computer facilities on campus. For more information regarding the Calculus Instruction Enhancement Project email: Dr. Gabor Toth
Susan Carter

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