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Figuring Web Calculus via Special Browser
2/12/2002
At Texas A&M University, professors have developed a special curriculum
designed to make high-quality calculus courses available to those who do not
have access to the traditional classroom. The courses, first and second semester
WebCalc 1 and WebCalc 2, were developed by Don Allen, Mike Stecher, and Philip
Yasskin at Texas A&M beginning in the fall of 1997. They cover material
required in the two-semester engineering calculus sequence and are also available
to high schools as AB and BC advanced placement courses.
The course is recommended for self-motivated students, the type who might want to take a calculus course at a small high school that d'es not have enough students to offer a traditional class. It is also excellent for mature students wanting to take a college calculus course on their own schedule while working during the day. And the professors say it is also perfect as a review course for a high school math teacher who is suddenly told she will be teaching AP calculus next fall and has not looked at calculus for the past eight years.
An introduction and description of the course is available on the Web at www.math.tamu.edu/~webcalc. However, the course material itself is not accessible using either Internet Explorer or Netscape. That's because the quality of mathematical display via those browsers is not up to the standards of the course developers. Rather, students must obtain a specialized browser called Scientific Notebook. The browser, which can also be used as a sophisticated graphing calculator, is available for about $99 from MacKichan Inc. or free for 30 days at www.mackichan.com.
It comes with Maple and MuPad computing engines.
From within Scientific Notebook, the full text of the courses can be obtained via the Web by clicking on File + Open Location and going to www.math.tamu.edu/~webcalc/1/mindex.tex for WebCalc 1 or www.academicsolutions.
com/webcalc2/mindex.tex for WebCalc 2. This brings up the main table of contents for each course. There are hyperlinks to the chapter tables of contents and the pages of the course. The text includes a derivation of the basic concepts with pop-up notes for more detail, proofs, and historical references. In addition, there are many examples with full solutions, exercises, and pop-up quizzes.
In the studio mode of delivery, the students come to a computer lab three days a week for 50 minutes. There, they read the course text and practice with exercises and pop quizzes. When they don't understand something, they ask their neighbors or call the instructor or teaching assistant over for direct one-on-one help. Then, for two days a week for 50 minutes, they meet with the instructor who answers questions, d'es a few more examples, gives a quiz on a chapter, and introduces the material from the next chapter. The students also take three midterm exams and a final.
In the distance mode of delivery, a college student covers the material at his or her own pace but is expected to cover two or three small chapters a week. After each chapter, the student takes an unproctored quiz. The quiz is posted on the Web, and the student
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