Utilizing data from the 20-year record of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY), this analysis uses a set of variables to predict employment in engineering for a national sample of adults aged 34 to 37. The LSAY is one of the longest longitudinal studies of the impact of secondary education and postsecondary education conducted in the…

In the mid-1990s, Mercer University's undergraduate schools placed incoming freshmen in their first mathematics course, using only their scores on the mathematics portion of the SAT (SATM). This placement policy was strongly supported by the admissions office because it did not require additional testing of the freshmen in their on-campus summer…

This paper reports on the findings of the evaluation of Learning Units (LU), a special type of Learning Object designed to help overcome the difficulties associated with learning Calculus concepts at undergraduate level. An Interactive Platform for Learning Calculus (PIAC) that serves as a container for the LU was created following a specific…

This article describes some problems of the maximum/minimum type, which are generally solved using calculus at secondary school, but which here are solved algebraically. We prove six algebraic properties and then apply them to this kind of problem. This didactic approach allows pupils to solve these problems even at the beginning of secondary…

The cycloid has been called the Helen of Geometry, not only because of its beautiful properties but also because of the quarrels it provoked between famous mathematicians of the 17th century. This article surveys the history of the cycloid and its importance in the development of the calculus.

This article presents an exploratory study that gives account of some students' perceptions of the completeness property of the set of real numbers. Students taking three undergraduate correlative courses in Calculus and Analysis answered a written questionnaire; their scripts are analysed trying to understand how operational is the notion of…

If f is a continuous positive-valued function defined on the closed interval from a to x and if k[subscript 0] is greater than 0, then lim[subscript k[right arrow]0[superscript +] [integral][superscript x] [subscript a] f (t)[superscript k-k[subscript 0]] dt= [integral][superscript x] [subscript a] f (t)[superscript -k[subscript 0] dt. This…

As a fundamental resource, textbooks shape the way we teach and learn mathematics. Based on examination of secondary school and university textbooks, we describe to what extent, and how, the presentation of mathematics material--in our case study, the concept of the line tangent to the graph of a function--could contribute to creation and…

Failure rates in first year calculus courses are high in most post-secondary institutions across North America and other parts of the world. This Inukshuk-funded open education project involved the development of five stand-alone pre-calculus learning modules. The design and revision phases of this project occurred between the fall of 2007 and…

Question asking is an important part of the learning process. One of our goals as educators is to encourage students to ask questions that focus on developing conceptual knowledge. To do this, we first need to better understand the factors involved in student question asking. This study looks in depth at one high school mathematics teacher who…

In this article, the author presents a qualitative multiple case study that explored how two urban Latina/o undergraduate students' emerging mathematical and racial identity constructions influenced their participation in a culturally diverse, Emerging Scholars Program, Calculus I workshop at a predominately White urban university. Drawing on…

Over the last few years, WTAMU Mathematics, Engineering and Science faculty has used interdisciplinary projects as the basis for implementation of a linked-class approach to Problem-Based Learning (PBL). A project that has significant relevance to engineering statics, fluid mechanics, and calculus is the Hydrostatic Pressure Project. This project…

Coming from the Macsyma system and adapted to the Common Lisp standard, Maxima can be regarded as a tool for a frequent use in the mathematics classroom. The main aim of this work is to show some possibilities of Maxima and its graphical interface through our experience as Mathematics teachers in Business degrees, although it can be easily spread…

Dynamic/interactive graphing applets can be used to supplement standard computer algebra systems such as Maple, Mathematica, Derive, or TI calculators, in courses such as Calculus, Differential Equations, and Dynamical Systems. The addition of this type of software can lead to discovery learning, with students developing their own conjectures, and…

This study highlights ways in which generative activities may be coupled with network-based technologies in the context of teacher preparation to enhance preservice teachers' cognizance of how their own experience as students provides a blueprint for the learning environments they may need to generate in their future classrooms. In this study, the…