The purpose of this article is to present two very active applied modeling projects that were successfully implemented in a first semester calculus course at Hollins University. The first project uses a logistic equation to model the spread of a new disease such as swine flu. The second project is a human take on the popular article "Do Dogs Know…

This study investigated whether students who are studying calculus were able to determine the graph of the derivative of the functions related to the problems they come across in their daily lives or in applied science. A test was given to science and engineering students at a Turkish university. At the end of this study, it was determined that…

The authors explore the importance of "range" and its relationship to continuously differentiable functions that have inverses when their graphs are reflected about lines other than y = x. Some open questions are posed for the reader. (Contains 5 figures.)

Building block toys can be used to illustrate various concepts connected with functions including graphs and rates of change of linear and exponential functions, piecewise functions, and composition of functions. Five brief activities suitable for a pre-calculus course are described.

The authors describe a collection of dynamic interactive simulations for teaching and learning most of the important ideas and techniques of introductory statistics and probability. The modules cover such topics as randomness, simulations of probability experiments such as coin flipping, dice rolling and general binomial experiments, a simulation…

In this article we consider an example suitable for investigation in many mid and upper level undergraduate mathematics courses. Fourier series provide an excellent example of the differences between uniform and non-uniform convergence. We use Dirichlet's test to investigate the convergence of the Fourier series for a simple periodic saw tooth…

We investigate the possibility of approximating the value of a definite integral by approximating the integrand rather than using numerical methods to approximate the value of the definite integral. Particular cases considered include examples where the integral is improper, such as an elliptic integral. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

We discuss the introduction and teaching of partial differential equations (heat and wave equations) via modeling physical phenomena, using a new approach that encompasses constructing difference equations and implementing these in a spreadsheet, numerically solving the partial differential equations using the numerical differential equation…

Many popular mathematical software products including Maple, Mathematica, Derive, Mathcad, Matlab, and some of the TI calculators produce incorrect graphs because they use complex arithmetic instead of "real" arithmetic. This article expounds on this issue, provides possible remedies for instructors to share with their students, and demonstrates…

A survey was administered to calculus students who had previously been exposed to a course on integral calculus. The purpose of the survey was to explore students' understanding of the definition of a definite integral, their abilities to evaluate definite integrals, and their graphical interpretations of definite integrals. The analysis of…

Discussed is the method of substitution of variables within the framework of precalculus level extremum problems, both maximum and minimum. Many examples with graphical representations are provided. (JJK)

This paper presents an assessment tool which can be used during the first weeks of calculus to measure students' visual thinking skills. We have developed and applied this instrument in classes for the last three years, tabulating results and interviewing students on a regular basis. We discuss our findings and provide hints to using the…

We present a card trick that can be used to review or teach a variety of topics in discrete mathematics. We address many subjects, including permutations, combinations, functions, graphs, depth first search, the pigeonhole principle, greedy algorithms, and concepts from number theory. Moreover, the trick motivates the use of computers in…

The interconnected world of actors and movies is a familiar, rich example for graph theory. This paper gives the history of the "Kevin Bacon Game" and makes extensive use of a Web site to analyze the underlying graph. The main content is the classroom development of the weighted average to determine the best choice of "center" for the graph. The…

The possibility of approximating a function with a linear combination of exponential functions of the form e[superscript x], e[superscript 2x], ... is considered as a parallel development to the notion of Taylor polynomials which approximate a function with a linear combination of power function terms. The sinusoidal functions sin "x" and cos "x"…