![]() Participants in both these institutes used the activities and made valuable suggestions for improving and clarifying the handouts and sketches. I'd also like to thank the participants in the Key Curriculum Press 2003 Summer Institutes on Exploring Calculus with The Geometer’s Sketchpad and on The Geometer’s Sketchpad: Advanced Tools and Topics. The first chapter of his book Calculus: Concepts and Applications provides an introduction to the big ideas that students will study throughout the year in calculus, and these Sketchpad activities are adapted from the lessons in that chapter. Talk abstracts and User Group details are given below. The Geometer's Sketchpad featured prominently at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 86th Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City. My sincere thanks to Paul Foerster for the inspiration for these activities. Report from the 2008 NCTM Annual Meeting. The handouts are available either in Adobe Acrobat Reader (.pdf) format for printing, or in Microsoft Word (.doc) format in case you want to make any modifications. You can use the links below to download the handouts and sketches for all five activities. The fourth and fifth provide two different approaches to the concept of limits. The second and third introduce one type of integral, the definite integral. The first activity provides an introduction to the concept of instantaneous rate and derivative. No prior experience with Sketchpad is required for these investigations. ![]() Each activity includes a two-page handout containing directions for the student, a GSP sketch for students to manipulate and investigate, and notes for the teacher (including answers to the questions asked in the handout). The activities are designed to be short and easy to use. By actually manipulating sketches that introduce these concepts, students are more involved and find the concepts more vivid and more accessible than is possible by means of textbook or classroom explanations. Pursuing these activities with The Geometer's Sketchpad will give students a hands-on introduction to the major concepts to be studied in detail during the calculus course. Using Sketchpad’s Dynamic Geometry, you can construct interactive mathematical models ranging from basic investigations about shape and number to advanced, animated illustrations of complex systems. These activities are also useful at the end of a pre-calculus course. The Geometer’s Sketchpad is a software system for creating, exploring, and analyzing a wide range of mathematics. You can either use all of the activities at the beginning of the course to give students an overview of the topics they will be covering, or you can use each activity as you introduce the particular topic covered in the activity. The five activities here are suitable for introducing the main topics of a calculus course. Sketchpad Activities for Introducing Calculus Topics Scott Steketee
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