Breen, Sinéad ORCID: 0000-0001-7215-0460 and O'Shea, Ann
ORCID: 0000-0001-8504-2290
(2011)
Designing rich sets of tasks for undergraduate Calculus courses.
In: MEI 4, 22-23 September 2011, Dublin, Ireland.
Abstract
Research has shown that the types of tasks assigned to students affect their learning. Studies have found that many mathematical tasks created for second and third level students promote instrumental rather than relational understanding, and imitative rather than creative reasoning. In this paper, we describe some frameworks that aim to guide teachers when writing tasks. From these frameworks a set of task types that are deemed appropriate for undergraduate students, and that foster mathematical habits of mind, have been selected: these are evaluating mathematical statements; example generation; analysing reasoning; conjecturing; generalising; visualisation; and using definitions. We report on an effort to design a set of tasks for an introductory calculus course using these principles and give examples of exercises on the topic of continuity. The teacher’s role in the implementation of such tasks is also discussed.
Metadata
Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
---|---|
Event Type: | Conference |
Refereed: | Yes |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | Rich tasks, task design, calculus |
Subjects: | Social Sciences > Education Mathematics |
DCU Faculties and Centres: | DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science and Health > School of Mathematical Sciences Research Institutes and Centres > Research Centre in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education (CASTel) |
Published in: | Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on Research in Mathematics Education (MEI4). . St Patrick's College, Dublin. |
Publisher: | St Patrick's College, Dublin |
ID Code: | 30682 |
Deposited On: | 24 Jan 2025 09:17 by Sinead Breen . Last Modified 24 Jan 2025 09:17 |
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