In this article, the authors share their favorite "Construct It!" activity, which focuses on rate of change and functions. The initial approach to instruction was procedural in nature and focused on making use of formulas. Specifically, after modeling how to find the slope of the line given two points and use it to solve for the…

This paper discusses the mathematical and didactical problems of teaching indefinite integral in the context of the ubiquitous availability of online integral calculators. The symbol of indefinite integral introduced by Leibniz, unfortunately, does not contain an indication of the interval on which the antiderivatives should be calculated. This…

Every application of integration by parts can be done with a tabular method. The trick is to identify and consider each new integral in the table before deciding how to proceed. This paper supplements a classic introduction to integration by parts with a particular tabular method called Row Integration by Parts (RIP). Approaches to tabular methods…

The article shows that even a small number of iterations give a very large length of the Koch Curve. The overall purpose of this work is to show that even a small number of iterations can give a very complex fractal structure. In this case it is the very big length of Koch's curve. As examples, the distance from the Earth to the Moon and from the…

The purpose of this article is to provide an explicit formula for the bounds of integration of the regular simplex centred at the origin. Furthermore, this article rigorously proves that these integration bounds recover the volume of the regular simplex. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that such integration bounds have been…

This article presents a simple, fast, and equally accurate technique for measuring the area of a circle and of an ellipse without using geometric formulas. This therefore, together with the known radius of the circle and the semi-major and semi-minor axes of the ellipse, allows for the calculation of [pi]. The experiment is easy, thrilling, and…

Recently, Lima lamented on the 'time-consuming and tiresome' pedagogical nature of repeated integration by parts, throwing down the challenge of providing a pencil-and-paper solution to a related problem in a few seconds. Lima put forth a simple formula as an alternative. In this work, I offer a response to Lima's challenge and his formula.…

A method based on oblique projection is presented for construction of sundials. The derived formulas are classical, but usage of vectors and projections renders a coherent presentation rather than a number of special cases. The presented work is aimed to be useful for those taking a beginning module on vector algebra.

In this paper, we provide an elaboration of the notion of mathematical structure -- a term agreed upon as valuable but difficult to define. We pull apart the terminology surrounding the notion of structure in mathematics: relationship, generalising/generalisation and properties, and offer an architecture of structure that distinguishes and…

We use Taylor's formula with Lagrange remainder to make a modern adaptation of Poisson's proof of a version of the fundamental theorem of calculus in the case when the integral is defined by Euler sums, that is Riemann sums with left endpoints which are equally spaced. We discuss potential benefits for such an approach in basic calculus courses.

This article explains how explorations into the quadratic formula can offer students opportunities to learn about the structure of algebraic expressions. In this article, the author leverages the graphical interpretation of the quadratic formula and describes an activity in which students derive the quadratic formula by quantifying the symmetry of…

The simple and compound interest formulas in isolation have limited usefulness for financial planning--until the concept of a regular payment is introduced. This article presents and discusses a simple investigation given to an advanced Year 10 mathematics class, with most students looking to study Mathematical Methods in Years 11 and 12. This…

Theon's ladder is an ancient method for easily approximating "n"th roots of a real number "k." Previous work in this area has focused on modifying Theon's ladder to approximate roots of quadratic polynomials. We extend this work using techniques from linear algebra. We will show that a ladder associated to the quadratic…

The formula for the variance of a binomial distribution is both concise and elegant. However, it is often taught without reference to the underlying reasoning. That being the case, is it important, or useful, to understand why this formula can be used to calculate the requisite result? In this article, the author demonstrates a teaching sequence…

All students need to discuss mathematics to develop and deepen understanding. However, for English Learners (ELs), peer dialogue is imperative and indispensable to conceptual understanding as they participate in mathematical practices and engage in increasingly sophisticated uses of language (Heritage, Walqui, and Linquanti 2015). As ELs share…