Department of Mathematics, Cornell University

  
 
 

Class Materials

This semester we are piloting two types of questions; GoodQuestions used in class designed to help instructors judge the student's understanding of concepts and for students to explore new ideas and concepts in calculus; and preclass warmup questions that students do before they attend lecture each day.

GoodQuestions are designed to inspire a deeper level of thinking and understanding. Students are asked the question in class and using a polling system, students choose what they believe to be the correct answer. Students then discuss their ideas with their classmates, after which the instructor polls the class again. This cycle of discussion and refining one's thinking helps students deepen their understanding. The polling helps instructors gauge the level of students understanding about key concepts, before and after peer discussions. The list of GoodQuestions are below.

Note that each question has a code that indicates the difficulty associated with that question shown below.

[Q] "Quick Check" Designed to quickly check students' basic understanding of the material
[P] "Probing" Usually requires some thought and extension beyond basic concepts.
[D] "Deep" Difficult questions that will usually require instructor intervention to help guide students in the right direction.

PDF Files of GoodQuestions

Editable Lists of GoodQuestions (LaTex)

Preclass warmup questions are answered by students on a topic just before they see that topic in lecture. These questions are not deep and are simply based on the textbook reading. They are designed to help students have a familiarity with the subject matter before seeing it in class. This allows the instructor to probe key concepts more in class. The questions are administered using a software package called MapleTA that automatically grades their assignments and records their answers. Instructors can log on to view their students' grades before class if they wish.

View MapleTA questions from the student's point-of-view

Download entire list of Preclass warmup questions (*.pdf)

These questions are copyrighted by Maria Terrell and may not be reproduced on a for-profit basis without her permission. They are being distributed on a for-profit basis exclusively by Pearson.