In Pre-Calculus courses, students are taught the composition and combination of functions to model physical applications. However, when combining two or more functions into a single more complicated one, students may lose sight of the physical picture which they are attempting to model. A block diagram, or flow chart, in which each block…

The graphing calculator affords the student in analysis a powerful tool to extend visualization, which was previously limited to textbook illustrations and time-consuming constructions. Provides illustrative examples used in initial classroom presentations of several topics including convergence and in student explorations of these topics. (ASK)

Presents three geometric problems from a workshop for in-service algebra teachers to help them make connections between the mathematical concepts that they know and the drawings that they were required to display on their graphing calculators. (ASK)

Presents an activity to investigate physico-mathematical concepts and provide mathematics arguments that are very close to a proof with the advent and availability of powerful technology. Demonstrates without using calculus how the law of reflection for parabolas is derived from Fermat's principle of least time. (ASK)

Promotes the use of logistic modeling in high school and early college mathematics, to compare this model to commonly used models, and to give an alternative to the TI-83 built-in logistic-regression key method when that method fails to converge or gives an inappropriate model. (ASK)

Presents a methodology designed to strengthen the cognitive effects of using graphing calculators to solve polynomial equations using pattern matching, searching, and heuristics. Discusses pattern matching as a problem-solving strategy useful in the physical, social, political, and economic worlds of today's students. (DDR)