Breen, Sinead and O'Shea, Ann and Pfeiffer, Kirsten (2013) The use of unfamiliar tasks in first year calculus courses to aid the transition from school to university mathematics. In: Proceedings of the Eight Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, pp. 2316-2325. ISBN 978-975-429-315-9

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Abstract

Research has shown that mathematics courses at university often focus more on conceptual understanding than those at secondary school (Clark & Lovric, 2008). Moreover, the literature reports that the types of tasks assigned to students affect their learning. A project was undertaken by the authors in which tasks were designed and presented to first-year undergraduate Calculus students with the aim of promoting conceptual understanding and developing mathematical thinking skills. Here we present data from interviews with five students; they reported an increased emphasis on conceptual understanding at university, and found the tasks assigned beneficial in the development of conceptual understanding. We suggest that unfamiliar tasks are useful in the transition from school to university mathematics.

Item Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	The authors would like to acknowledge the support of a NAIRTL grant.
Keywords:	calculus; transition; school mathematics; university mathematics; conceptual understanding; task design;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Mathematics and Statistics
Item ID:	4900
Depositing User:	Dr. Ann O'Shea
Date Deposited:	16 Apr 2014 14:37
Publisher:	Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
Refereed:	Yes
Funders:	NAIRTL
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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