Electronics-based Calculus: A transposition pilot study

Published in: Proceedings of the 13th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology: Engineering Education Facing the Grand Challenges, What Are We Doing?
Date of Conference: July 29 - 31, 2015
Location of Conference: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Authors: Sergio Camacho Leon
Jorge Quishpe Armas
Refereed Paper: #270

Abstract:

The present paper describes the design, implementation and impact assessment of challenging and interactive learning experiences about the foundations of Calculus from the perspective of electronic circuits. Such activities were designed for undergraduate students of the areas related to Information Technology and Electronics and aim to explore context-rich problems as a teaching strategy for stimulating critical thinking, collaborative work and the use of new information technologies. The effectiveness and educational assessment of the developed activities are examined using the normalized gain metric from a diagnostic and final test, as well as an opinion survey; both applied during the fall 2014 semester to volunteer students enrolled in various academic programs of the School of Engineering and Information Technology at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey. Preliminary results are analyzed by academic program, advancement in the curriculum and methodology used; with the intention to draw recommendations for the eventual implementation of these activities in a college calculus course.

Keywords-- Mathematics, Electronics, Information Technology, Flexible Learning, Critical Thinking.