In an effort to maintain the global competitiveness of the United States, ensuring a strong Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workforce is essential. The purpose of this study was to identify high school courses that serve as predictors of success in college level gatekeeper courses, which in turn led to the successful…

Explores the practice of one high school teacher who provided students with concrete examples from their physics class to give them a contextually rich environment in which to explore the abstractions of calculus. Indicates that students discovered connections between the physics concepts of position, velocity, and acceleration and the calculus…

The present research study investigates how undergraduate students in an integrated calculus and physics class use physics to help them solve calculus problems. Using Zandieh's (2000) framework for analyzing student understanding of derivative as a starting point, this study adds detail to her "paradigmatic physical" context and begins to address…