This is the tenth year for Calculus&Mathematica at the Ohio State University. Through its history it has been used at over 50 colleges and universities and lots of high schools. Remote Calculus for high school students using C&M has been taught at the University of Illinois for nine years and it is in its fifth year at OSU. These two universities and several other universities, which also teach high school students remotely, form a coalition called NetMath to cooperate and collaborate in this endeavor. Other universities and colleges which teach calculus remotely to high school students will be becoming a part of NetMath.
The NetMath branch at the Ohio State University is called Calculus Remote Ohio State University, or CROSU.
First let's describe a C&M classroom in a typical college, say at the Ohio State University or at the University of Illinois. There are students sitting at computers, but they are not staring silently at them, working by themselves. Usually two or three are gathered around talking about what they see on the screen. They point, write things down on paper, and talk to each other.
There is a "teacher" who is sometimes a professor, sometimes a graduate student, and often is an undergraduate assistant. Sometimes there are all three kinds of teachers in the room. The teachers are wandering around leading discussions or asking questions. The teachers sit down with groups and enter into their conversation. Sometimes they will take students who all have the same questions up to the board and they all talk. Usually the teachers will not write anything but will ask the students to do the writing. Everyone stands around thinking and talking about the math question.
The atmosphere is very relaxed and people work at their own pace, except for the day or so before a quiz, of course. It is not like most math classrooms and certainly not like what you might think a college classroom would be like. The interesting thing is that everyone is talking about math. They are not just trying to get the right answer to a problem; they are trying to understand what is going on.
This is exactly what you will be doing, except you will be using technology to make it happen, remotely. You will be talking and thinking math with some other students, perhaps at your school. You will watch your computer screen, write things down on it, or on paper. A good part of the time you will be working independently, at your own pace, talking with other students at your school or remotely.
As in the lab, you will have a "teacher" who you can call over to help you. The teacher is the hotline. You will call the teacher over by calling on the phone, using AIM, or e-mailing. The hotline monitor may not be your own mentor, and it will probably be a different person depending on when you contact them. Whoever it may be, they will be there to help you get through any problems you may have, just like the teacher in the lab. Another function of the hotline monitor is to grade homework and provide feedback on your assignments.
You will have a mentor assigned to you. Your assigned mentor is your friend, guide, tutor, teacher, and nag. Your mentor will e-mail you regularly and keep track of what you are doing. Although they will sometimes help you with questions you may have, you should not rely on them to help you whenever you have a question. Your mentor is a full time student, and may not always be around to give you immediate responses to your questions. That's the job of the HotLine, where you can always get quick responses to your questions.
There will be assignments, lots of practice on the computer and on paper, quizzes, and a final. See the syllabus for assignments and due dates. Most of your work, even quizzes, can be re-done to patch up and correct problems. Many assignments and even some quizzes can be done collaboratively with your group. See the section on grading for details on this.
Calculus&Mathematica (C&M) is the name of the material used in this course. It was written by Jerry Uhl, Horacio Porta, and Bill Davis. Your calculus is contained in electronic lessons which you will access on your computer. We will send you a copy of these lessons on CD-ROM. You can print the lessons out from CD-ROM.
Calculus&Mathematicais a computer based, interactive calculus course. The traditional lecture mode of teaching is gone, and is replaced by an active learning center in which students work on open ended problems, learning the concepts of calculus by using them. Students work in groups, are led through their thoughts with Socratic questioning techniques, and do all of their work in electronic notebooks which allow them to discuss, calculate and graph in one place. Students who enter through the OSU Academy will also receive a copy of the textbook on CD-ROM.
The C&M courses consist of lessons, each of which stresses a different concept. The material for each lesson is contained in electronic notebooks. Each lesson is organized the same way: Basics, Tutorials, Give it a Try and LitSheets. The Basics introduce and explain the new ideas and theories. The Tutorials expand on the ideas already presented with "real-life" applications. Give it a Try (GIAT) gives you a chance to test your understanding of the material and your ability to manipulate the tools you learned in the Basics and Tutorials. The GIAT section is the heart of the lesson. The Literacy Sheets (LitSheets) also test your understanding of concepts but are answered using paper and pencil.
|