A computer laboratory classroom is being used full-time and exclusively for undergraduate mathematics instruction. Through the laboratory, instruction will be enhanced, providing significantly improved versions of calculus courses that are taken primarily by undergraduate majors in mathematics, engineering, and the physical sciences. The computer equipment will be used to significantly enhance student conceptual understanding of the fundamental mathematical ideas. By incorporating computer graphics and symbolic algebra software into the lectures, students can focus on the main ideas instead of the routine algebraic manipulations that most students associate with mathematical activity. In addition, experimental versions of undergraduate courses in multivariable calculus, ordinary differential equations, and linear algebra will be developed. During each of the fall and spring semesters, about twelve sections of first-year calculus courses (totaling 480 students per semester) will meet in the laboratory at least weekly, and four sections of the more advanced courses (totaling 160 students per semester) will be taught exclusively in this laboratory.In the summer, the laboratory will provide a greatly expanded, full-time facility for the Arizona State University Minority Youth Program, the goal of which is to increase the supply of students from traditionally under represented ethnic groups majoring in mathematics and science. During each summer 200 high school student participants will be taught in this facility.
