One of the ancillaries that we offer to support the use of Active Calculus is a collection of “daily preparation assignments”. These assignments are modeled on Robert Talbert’s “guided practice” and provide students a short list of concrete tasks to complete prior to class so that they are prepared to actively engage with new ideas during class meetings. The .tex and .pdf files for full semesters of differential and integral calculus are available upon request to any who asks by email (boelkinm at gvsu dot edu). I wrote the assignments for differential calculus; my colleague David Clark wrote the ones for integral calculus. A typical daily prep assignment has an overview, a brief summary of learning objectives, a short combination of reading and/or videos to watch, and usually the completion of a preview activity and a couple of basic exercises.
I’m excited to share that there are now online versions of these assignments that include embedded videos. Thanks to Charles Fortin and Gabriel Indurskis of Champlain St. Lambert College, there’s now the option of using these assignments in HTML format. Many of the assignments use existing videos from the GVSU YouTube channel, but others are newly created. The full collection of assignments is housed at http://math.mychamplain.ca/ on an easily searchable and fully indexed site. Click on “Calculus 1” or “Calculus 2” in the upper right to see the full list of daily preparation assignments for differential or integral calculus.
This is a wonderful example of the benefits of open-access course materials. I’d shared our daily prep assignments with Charles and Gabriel some time ago. They took them and made them even better, and now they’re available in an easy-to-use format for everyone. If you have similar developments related to Active Calculus (or calculus in general), I’d love to hear about them and be able to post them here.
Don’t forget that the preview activities are also available as a collection of Desmos activities, thanks to Marcia Frobish and Taylor Short of GVSU.