ABOUT THE CALCULUS CONSORTIUM BASED AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
The People | A Focused Vision | Client Disciplines | Guiding Principles
The People
In the late 1980's, the problems of undergraduate calculus instruction in the United States were of sufficient magnitude that the finding of a solution was funded by the National Science Foundation. The largest grant was given to the Calculus Consortium based at Harvard University.. This Consortium consisted of a large number of diverse institutions working in cooperation. The group now consists of:
- Deborah Hughes Hallett, University of Arizona
- Andrew Gleason, Harvard University
- Daniel E. Flath, University of South Alabama
- Sheldon Gordon, Suffolk County Community College.
- William G. McCallum, University of Arizona
- Eric Connally, Wellesley College
- Patti Fraser Lock, St. Lawrence University
- David Lomen, University of Arizona
- David Lovelock, University of Arizona
- Douglas Quinney, University of Keele
- Brad Osgood, Stanford University
- Andrew Pasquale, Chelmsford High School
- Jeffrey Tecosky-Feldman, Haverford College
- Joe Thrash, University of Southern Mississippi
- Karen Rhea, University of Southern Mississippi
- Thomas Tucker, Colgate University
- Frank Avenso, Nassau Community College
- Katherine Yoshiwara, Los Angeles Pierce College
- Ann Davidian, General Douglas MacArthur High School
- Philip Cheifetz, Nassau Community College
- Pat Shure, University of Michigan
- Carl Swenson, Seattle University
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A Focused Vision
The authors focused on a small number of key concepts, emphasizing depth of understanding rather than breadth of coverage. The curriculum was prepared by starting with a clean slate. Some new topics, such as differential equations, were added, and some traditional topics whose inclusion could not be justified after discussions with mathematicians, engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, and economists were omitted.
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Client Disciplines
Faculty in engineering, physics, chemistry, biology and economics have had considerable input into these texts, both in choice of topics and choice of applications. In the Second Edition, comments were solicited once again from a large number of mathematicians and instructors in client disciplines. Suggestions were incorporated while maintaining a commitment to a focused treatment of a limited number of topics.
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Guiding Principles
Exercises in the texts are of central importance since students learn most when they are most active. Problems are varied and some are challenging. Most cannot be worked by following a template in the texts.
Rule of Four: Where appropriate, topics should be presented geometrically, numerically, analytically, and verbally.
Problem Driven
Formal definitions and procedures evolve form the investigation of practical problems. Whenever possible, the authors start with a practical problem and derive the general results from it. These practical problems are usually, but not always, real world applications.
Open-Ended Real World Problems
The real world problems are open-ended, meaning that there may be more than one solution depending on a students' analysis. Many times, solving a problem relies on common sense ideas that are not stated in the problem but which students will know from everyday life.
Plain English
These books present the main ideas of calculus in plain English to encourage the students to read it in detail, rather than just reading the worked out examples.
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