The aim of this study is to examine the concept images of mathematics educators and pre-service elementary mathematics teachers regarding the relationships between the concepts of slope, rate of change and derivative. Four mathematics educators working in different state universities and responsible for Analysis courses, three pre-service…

Over the course of the introductory calculus-based physics course, students are often expected to build conceptual understanding and develop and refine skills in problem solving and qualitative inferential reasoning. Many of the research-based materials developed over the past 30 years by the physics education research community use sequences of…

We investigated understanding of the linear independence concept based on the type and nature of connections displayed in seven non-mathematics majors' interview responses to a set of open-ended questions. Through a qualitative analysis, we identified six categories of frequently displayed connections. There were also recognizable differences in…

In the multivariable calculus course, a standard application of triple integration is to find volumes of bounded regions in R[superscript 3]. In this article, we consider the problem of computing volumes, by way of examples, of regions bounded by planes and quadric surfaces. For illustration, we present the solution to two basic but non-standard…

The paper presents analyses of multivariable calculus learning-teaching phenomena through the lenses of DNR-based instruction, focusing on several foundational calculus concepts, including "cross product," "linearization," "total derivative," "Chain Rule," and "implicit differentiation." The…

In this paper we focus on Norwegian first-year engineering students' interpretations of differentials and definite integrals. Through interviews with 15 engineering students, we investigated how the students interpreted the different symbols involved in the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (FTC), as displayed in the textbook used in their calculus…

This study explores calculus students' opportunities to learn the concepts of integral by examining one mathematician's videotaped lessons and the textbook. The results show that both lessons and textbook introduced important cognitive resources very briefly and focused on procedures and techniques of integration. Implications to these results…

Background/purpose: The purpose of this study was to elicit faculty members' perspectives on effective instructional methods for teaching calculus in the UK and Saudi Universities. Materials/methods: An online questionnaire was administered to 150 UK faculty members and 156 Saudi faculty members specialising in curricula and methods of teaching…

This dissertation reports on three studies about students' conceptions and learning of the idea of instantaneous rate of change. The first study investigated 25 students' conceptions of the idea of instantaneous rate of change. The second study proposes a hypothetical learning trajectory, based on the literature and results from the first study,…

The aim of this paper is to present a teaching proposal for the theoretical part relating to the first- and second-order linear difference equations with constant coefficients suitable for the first-year students at various types of universities. In contradistinction to the methods often applied (memorization of algorithms without a proper…

We use the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws-Long, a research-based survey instrument with 78 items at the level of introductory physics, to investigate introductory and advanced students' difficulties with internal energy, work, and heat transfer. We present analysis of data from 12 different introductory and advanced…

When learning physics, students need more than just an understanding of mathematical and physical concepts. Integrating the two fields is crucial, as research indicates that students often struggle even when they have a strong grasp of both. In this paper, we use the heat equation as an example from higher education. Given the importance of the…

This article reports on a study of Kuwaiti college students' knowledge about the concept of functions. It also shows the connections these students make between different representations of functions. The results indicated that most students (96%) were unable to provide a definition of a function and only a third could provide examples of a…

Difficulties presented by students on the concept of instantaneous velocity are well known. This is in part due to instantaneous speed being often defined in terms of the notion of mathematical limit, which may not be clear to many students in introductory physics courses. In this work we present a complementary teaching proposal that can help…

In this reflection of teaching, we describe a series of activities that introduce the Taylor series through dynamic visual representations with explicit connections to students' prior learning. Over the past several decades, educators have noted that curricular materials tend to present the Taylor series in a way that students often interpret as…