Revamped calculus course:

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-revamped-calculus.html

Making calculus easier to teach. Could be a game changer in STEM courses.

@sonhouse said
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-revamped-calculus.html

Making calculus easier to teach. Could be a game changer in STEM courses.

Nice change, teaching them how to think instead of what to think.

@KellyJay
Quite a change from my personal experience with my Lutheran School teaching from K to 8.

@kellyjay said
Nice change, teaching them how to think instead of what to think.

This has been the purpose of universities since, well, forever.

@Suzianne
Not all of them unfortunately.

@sonhouse said
@Suzianne
Not all of them unfortunately.

Well, I meant real universities, of course, not like Trump University.

Or religious universities. Clearly, they are in the business of telling people what to think.

@sonhouse said
@KellyJay
Quite a change from my personal experience with my Lutheran School teaching from K to 8.

And this, grasshopper, is why we have what is known as a separation of church and state in this country.

@sonhouse said
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-revamped-calculus.html

Making calculus easier to teach. Could be a game changer in STEM courses.

There isn't anything particularly new or revelatory about the idea of having one or two weekly problem-solving sessions (also called labs) supplementing traditional lectures. Maybe a calculus section has 100 students that convene for lectures in an auditorium, and they're divided into 5 lab sections that meet at other times in smaller classrooms for group work and problem-solving. The professor delivers the lectures, and grad students handle the labs.

But it does require that a professor have minions (like grad students) to help with labs and grading. It's not practical for, say, community colleges where a professor runs everything and has no slave labor to exploit.

@Soothfast
Bitterly cold part of Pa? I live in the Pocono's and have lived in Alaska and it seems a BIT warmer here🙂 What part of Pa do you live?