This project will develop, refine, and investigate a calculus learning environment, called CalcLab, which is based on a set of interactive physical devices, with computer interface. In this environment, students will be guided by written materials in activities that involve exploration, experimentation, and problem solving around the central concepts of calculus and thereby enrich their understanding of these concepts. Such a learning environment will be helpful in giving access to calculus to those students who have traditionally not been well-served by courses in the subject, as well as deepening the understanding all students have of it. This project builds on themes underlying the current calculus reform movement and implements research findings of the Principal Investigators on a research project funded for the last four years by the National Science Foundation. In addition to those students in college calculus courses who will be helped by the CalcLab learning environment, pre-service and in-service high school mathematics teachers will benefit through the opportunity to think more deeply about the central concepts of calculus than they have in their past training. The principal activities over the 2 1/2 year funding period are that the CalcLab devices will be made more robust, materials that will guide students in the use of these devices will be written in collaboration with college calculus teachers, an instructor's manual will be written based on these collaborations, in-depth studies of students' learning in this environment will be carried out and published, and instructors' professional development in connection with the use of such environments will be undertaken.
