Instructors of Math 111:
Soon we will be putting flyers in your mailbox to distribute to your students about the "Special Project-oriented" sections of Math 112. Please distribute these flyers to your students. Most of them will be registering for Math 112 next week. With the flyer is a sheet with comments from the students who took the special sections last semester -- this will probably give your students the best idea about which section they should take.
In summary:
1. The special sections cover almost the same CONTENT MATERIAL as the regular sections.
2. Class time is the same as the regular sections except that about once a week we devide the class into small groups that work together on "ACTIVITIES". These activities serve a variety of functions: introduce new topics, give the students an expereince of the ideas behind the theory, use calculs to solve 'real-world' problems.
3. There are 3-4 longer PROJECTS which are completed by students in small groups (3-5 per group) outside of class. Each project is in the context of a "real-world" problem and takes 3-4 weeks to complete and require putting together several different parts of the curricullum and writting a complete coherent report. This semster: Project 1 requires the students to combine volume by slices, fundemental theorem of Caculus, chain rule, and natural logs. Project 2 requires combing differential equations, infinite series, binomial theorem, and exponential function. Project 3 requires combining infinite series, error estimates, speed of convergence, and integral inequalities.
4. The special sections have only two prelims (instead of three) and a final. I have in my office a collection of activities and projects and the written reports of the students. Please stop by and look them over. Also, on Monday Nov 6, Harel and I will give a report on the special sections in the Ocasional Seminar -- please come to find out more.
If you have further question, contact either of us:
David Henderson &
Harel Barzilai