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Fostering Reflective Thinking In First-Semester Calculus Students, Pamela Crawford
Fostering Reflective Thinking In First-Semester Calculus Students, Pamela Crawford
Dissertations
This study focuses on the fostering of reflective thinking in students in a reform calculus course through completion of homework assignments incorporating reflective tasks, and the effect of these assignments on student understandings of calculus and conceptions of mathematics. The study, conducted in Fall 1997, involved two sections of first-semester calculus at a large midwestern university and used quantitative (n = 25, 18) and qualitative (n = 7) techniques.
Homework assignments incorporating reflective tasks included asking students to compare and contrast textbook ideas; to write about how obstacles were overcome as they attempted exercises; to develop concept maps organizing and …
The Effects Of Writing Assignments On Second-Semester Calculus Students' Understanding Of The Limit Concept, Melanie A. Wahlberg
The Effects Of Writing Assignments On Second-Semester Calculus Students' Understanding Of The Limit Concept, Melanie A. Wahlberg
Dissertations
The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of writing assignments on second-semester calculus students’ understanding of the limit concept, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The study involved two sections of second semester calculus (n = 37, 34) at Western Michigan University during the fall semester of 1997.
The treatment group completed six writing tasks focusing on the mathematical concept of limit. These conceptually-oriented writing assignments replaced some of the problem sets that the instructor would have normally assigned. The control group did not engage in writing tasks but handed in problem sets more frequently than the …