Electronic Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics

Atlanta, Georgia, March 10-13, 2016

Paper A005

This is an electronic reprint, reproduced by permission of Pearson Education Inc. Originally appeared in the Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, ISBN 013480029X, Copyright (C) 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc.


Calculus Classroom Activities Involving Groups of Learning Catalytics Questions

Przemyslaw Bogacki


Old Dominion University


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ABSTRACT

Personal response system devices (or 'clickers') could be quite useful to engage students and to gather useful feedback during a mathematics lecture. The author has used such devices with considerable success since 2008. However, the major downside is that clickers either have to be purchased by students or the instructor has to distribute them to the students. Learning Catalytics platform offers the clickers' benefits without the hassle of dealing with the dedicated physical devices. It is a browser-based platform requiring a modern browser that can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, and computers. It also offers additional advantages, e.g., more flexible input modes (including questions requiring students to sketch a graph on their device) and support for peer instruction. The author has developed Learning Catalytics activities to engage students during calculus classes and has been class-testing them in sections of Calculus I and Calculus II taught during regular semesters as well as summer sessions since 2014. Activities on some topics were found to be particularly beneficial to students' learning - these are emphasized in the article.

Keyword(s): calculus