Outline
• Thumbnail sketch of the class
Calculus/Physics: Focusing on
Connections and Problem Solving
Dawn Meredith - Physics
Kelly Black - Mathematics
Karen Marrongelle - Mathematics
University of New Hampshire
Supported by the NSF, Grant 9752485
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Thumbnail sketch of the class
• Covers essentially the same material as Calc I and
II, Physics I and II; same credits
• Audience is engineering, mathematics and science
majors
• Active learning and cooperative groups are a
cornerstone of class work. Lab work done in class.
(Based on Studio format at RPI)
• Class meets 5 days a week for two hours each day:
– 2 days all calc
– 2 days all physics
– 1 day mixed
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Goals for the course
• Students gain experience problem solving and
gain familiarity with expert problem solving
strategies
• Students see the connections between mathematics
and science, particularly around the concepts of
change and superposition.
• Students develop conceptual and procedural
understanding of the mathematics and physics
• Students leave with positive attitudes about
mathematics and science.
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• Goals and Motivation for this new class
• Connections between physics and calculus
– Why are they important?
– How did we implement this?
– How did we assess this?
• Problem solving
– Why is this important?
– How did we implement this?
– How did we assess this?
• Conclusions and Future work
Thumbnail sketch of the class
• Materials used
– Standard physics (Halliday, Resnick and Walker) and
calculus (Larson) texts
– Tutorials in Physics by McDermott, Shafer, et al.
– Our own materials
• Classroom worksheets
• Projects
– Open-ended projects from University of Massachusetts
at Amherst
Overview of assessment
• From student feedback, they are overall happy
with the course (including group work, working
with instructors, connections and problem solving)
• Student gains on a conceptual survey (FCI) were
significantly higher than for the regular class
• Students performed at least as well as regular
students on standard problems.
• Instructors not involved in the original
development of the course enjoy teaching the
course but find it takes a lot of time.
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 Connections - why? Connections: why?
• From cognitive theory - new information • We would like dv
must be connected to old students to understand a=
dt
v= Ú a dt
that acceleration is the
• From our experience students did not see instantaneous rate of
the value of mathematics change of velocity
• Without the connections students spend too (i.e., the derivative)
much time on equations that have only and that the †velocity is
limited applicability. the integral of the
acceleration.
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Connections: why? Connections: Why?

• From Bruce Sherin’s paper on “How Students
• However, without Understand Physics Equations”
calculus students • Students in their third semester of calculus based
instead spend a good v = v 0 + at physics at UC Berkeley did not know which of the
deal of time and effort following is correct
memorizing and using 1
x = x 0 + v 0 t + at 2 – v=v0+at
equations that are only 2 – v=v0+1/2 at2
correct if the • Conclusion: Students do not make connections on
acceleration is their own.
constant.
†
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Connections - why? Connections: why?

Typical schedule:
• Study polynomials, trigonometric functions, logs
and exponentials as functions (half a semester)
• Derivatives (mid fall semester, long after we have
finished with introduction to acceleration)
• Integrals (begin at the end of fall semester, long
after we have talked about work - which is the
integral of the force along the path of motion)
• From one of our workshop participants
– In the first semester you don’t use calculus
because they don’t know it, it the second
semester you don’t use it because they do know
it!

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 Connections - how?
Reordering of Calculus Topics
Calculus/Physics (so that students have mathematical tools
when needed in physics).
• Polynomials as functions, rates of change, derivatives,
antiderivatives within the first month (apply this to
position, velocity and acceleration)
• Exponentials and logs, rates of change, derivatives,
antiderivatives within first two months (apply this to drag
problems)
• Trigonometric functions rates of change, etc by end of fall
(apply this to rotational problems)
Connections - how?
Some Examples of Combined Activities
• Slope fields and the drag force
• Newton’s method to find roots and finding if one
vehicle can catch another
• Solving the differential equations for damped
harmonic motion and electrical circuits
• Integrating to find Electric field or center of mass
• Projects involving calculus and physics

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Connections: assessment Connections:Assessment

Student comments about integration of
calculus and physics
• I can manipulate equations, and derive important formulas
that people usually only try to memorize.
• Without calculus, you can not learn a fraction of the
physics possible.
• I can see equations in different ways, and I can see things
others can’t
• I took both physics and calculus in high school, and I had
a very hard time with physics apart from calc….and I
know others had the opposite reaction, they understood the
calc because it made sense in physical terms.
• By applying differentiation and integration in a practical
sense it is easier to understand the why in addition to the
how.
Student interviews
• 6 students were recruited from our class, and 6
from the “control” class.
• They were asked to
– Calculate the total charge in a bar of uniform density
(requires multiplication only)
– Calculate the total charge in a bar of non-uniform
density (requires an integral)
– Calculate the electric field due to a bar of charge of
uniform density (requires an integral)
• These interviews took place about 3-5 weeks after
the corresponding material on electrostatics was
presented.
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Example of calc/phys student

Connections: Assessment
work
• However, the treatments were different
– Both groups of students had used integration
the previous semester to find the center of mass
and moment of inertia.
– Only the calculus/physics students had
integrated to find the electric field due to a bar
of charge.
– Neither students had integrated to find the total
charge in a bar of non-uniform charge.
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 Example of calc/phys student
Example of control student work
work

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Connections:Assessment
Example of control student work
Student interviews

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Connections: assessment Connections: assessment

• The good news:
– All students who used integration were able to
give an explanation as to why, along the lines
of “the charge is varying so you have to chop it
into small pieces and add it up”
• The bad news:
– Many believe we should integrate with respect
to dx instead of dq since x is changing while q
is not.
– Those students who know that we are
integrating with respect to q, nevertheless
stumble over how to change to x (but they do
know they need to change integration variables)

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 Problem solving - why and how Problem Solving-assessment
• Research: Students do not learn complex problem solving
without direct instruction. Did our students improve on complex
• Strategies:
– We use Beicnher’s GOAL format(much like Heller’s method and
problem solving?
Polya’s “How to Solve it”)
• Gather (gather data, get a conceptual understanding of the problem,
guesstimate the answer, draw pictures or graphs)
• Organize (decide how to go about the solution)
• Analyze (solve the problem)
• Learn (check the problem, what did you learn from doing the
problem?)
– The professors use this at the board, the students use this on their
own.
– We give lots of open-ended problems and projects to work on in
groups.
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Control Student work Problem Solving: assessment

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Problem Solving:Assessment Conclusions

• Other results • Students do not to make calculus-physics
– Both sets of students were about equally successful in connections on their own.
recalling and using ideas of centripetal acceleration
– Both sets of students had difficulty using the design • Integrals with dq and dm are difficult for all
aspect of the problem (they were looking for values of students
height and radius)
• Focus on concepts helps students in
– Both sets of students did some checking against
intuition as they worked. problem solving
– Control group did more “equation hunting”

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 Future work Advertisements
• It is an ongoing project to include education • Workshop this afternoon that will focus on
research into this project – Classroom activities
– Epistemology – Projects
– Group work – Technical aspects
– Continuous Assessment • Visit us on the web (see handouts in back)
– More on problem solving for materials we have developed

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