Some Initiatives in Calculus Teaching

In our experience of teaching Calculus to engineering undergraduates we have had to grapple with many different problems. A major hurdle has been students’ inability to appreciate the importance of the theory. In their view the theoretical part of mathematics is separate from the computing part. In general, students also believe that they can pass their exams even though they do not have a real understanding of the theory behind the problems they are required to solve. In an effort to surmount these difficulties we tried to find ways to make students better understand the theoretical part of Calculus. This paper describes our experience of teaching Calculus. It reports on the continuation of our previous research