USING TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE THE CURVE LEARNING OF BASIC NOTIONS IN ALGEBRA, CALCULUS AND GEOMETRY

One of the main problems facing mathematics teachers in scientific and technical disciplines (Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, etc.) at universities or engineering schools when receiving first year students is the need of providing them with the capabilities required to understand advanced notions from the early beginning in order to be able of following the initial explanations of teachers talking about Physics, Mechanics, Chemistry: usually the first explanation starts by writing down a differential equation in the blackboard when students hardly understands correctly what a real number is! The objective of this paper is to report how, firstly, a proper combination of technology (distance web learning through WebCT plus the Computer Algebra System Maple) and, secondly, a different way of presenting difficult notions concentrated more on the ideas than in the formalisms have been extremely useful in order to:!"Give the students the capability of understanding the initial explanations of teachers talking about physics, engineering, etc.;!"Reduce the gap between the mathematics explained at the secondary school and the mathematics expected to be known by a student when entering at the university (a critical problem in Spain from several years ago); and!"Provide to the students, in a very fast way, with a more solid set of math foundations to be used as an initial stratum