Marilyn Carlson, Arizona State University
A research-based approach for improving precalculus teaching and learning The function concept is a central idea of precalculus and beginning calculus and is used for modeling in the sciences and engineering, yet many students complete courses in precalculus and calculus with weak understandings of this concept. Students who are unable to construct meaningful function formulas to relate two varying quantities have little chance of responding to novel applied problems, or understanding key ideas of calculus such as derivative, accumulation and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. I will share data that reveals how students might construct these and other critical reasoning abilities and understandings for learning calculus. I will share the research developed
Pathways Precalculus student materials and teacher resources that provide the context for this research, and are resulting in large gains in student learning of the function concept and other foundational ideas for learning calculus. Results from using Pathways materials at 5 large universities will be shared and contrasted with other popular approaches to teaching precalculus mathematics.
