VISITORS EXPERIENCES IN AN EXHIBITION ABOUT CALCULUS

ID# : 3525
Under Category : Science Mathematics
Source: selindaresearch.com

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math shaped their experiences in Handling Calculus, and what that might mean for . Second, to an even greater degree than the rest of math, calculus seemed .

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Handling Calculus is a set of interactive exhibits about mathematics developed by the Science Museum of Minnesota and TERC. The exhibits are designed to engage visi-tors with kinesthetic, application-oriented, and concept-focused approaches to cal-culus and pre-calculus concepts. As we examined visitor interviews collected during the evaluation of Handling Calculus, it was striking how often respondents’ experi-ences with the exhibits stimulated memories they associated with school math. Re-spondents recognized math terms and symbols, reconstructed graphing skills, and recalled fragmentary concepts they had learned in school. In addition, they recount-ed stories about their former math teachers and the ways in which they had been taught mathematics, as well as a range of both positive and negative emotions they associated with school math. Respondents recognized and valued the hands-on and whole-body approaches used in Handling Calculus, contrasting the exhibits with their paper-and-pencil school experiences. Some respondents wondered if they would have done better at school calculus if their teachers had used the approaches taken by Handling Calculus. If you don’t like math, you may be thinking, “Why would any visitor, other than an engi-neer or scientist, willingly enter an exhibition about calculus?” Here is one answer: Learn-ing calculus does not have to begin with thick textbooks, droning teaching assistants, and red-ink-stained homework. Instead, calculus can begin with hands-on and full-body expe-riences like those that visitors have long enjoyed in science centers around the world. The Science Museum of Minnesota and TERC 1 created a series of interactive exhib- its about calculus and pre-calculus concepts, most of which involved graphing visitors’ ac-tions in real time on computer monitors and analyzing the resulting graphs.

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