Evaluating views of lecturers on the consistency of teaching content with teaching approach: traditional versus reform calculus

This study aims to evaluate the consistency of teaching content with teaching approaches in calculus on the basis of lecturers' views. In this sense, the structures of the examples given in two commonly used calculus textbooks, both in traditional and reform classrooms, are compared. The content analysis findings show that the examples in both textbooks are presented in a rather formal language and generally highlight procedural knowledge. And, even though the examples in the reform book chosen are structured using multiple representations, only a small number of them incorporated the usage of instructional technology. The lecturers' views which were gathered indicated that, although, on the one hand, the example structures of the traditional textbook largely overlapped with the characteristics of the traditional approach, the example structures of the reform textbook, on the other hand, were found to be inconsistent with the characteristics of the reform approach, especially with regard to its environment and knowledge components. At the end of the paper, some suggestions for further studies are provided for book authors and researchers.     

Bunny hops: using multiplicities of zeroes in calculus for graphing

Students learn a lot of material in each mathematics course they take. However, they are not always able to make meaningful connections between content in successive mathematics courses. This paper reports on a technique to address a common topic in calculus I courses (intervals of increase/decrease and concave up/down) while also making use of students’ pre-existing knowledge about the behaviour of functions around zeroes based on multiplicities.     

Malliavin calculus for regularity structures: The case of gPAM

Malliavin calculus is implemented in the context of Hairer (2014) [16]. This involves some constructions of independent interest, notably an extension of the structure which accommodates a robust, and purely deterministic, translation operator, in $L^2$-directions, between “models”. In the concrete context of the generalized parabolic Anderson model in 2D – one of the singular SPDEs discussed in the afore-mentioned article – we establish existence of a density at positive times.     

A sequent calculus for logic of knowledge and past time: Completeness and decidability

We consider logic of knowledge and past time. This logic involves the discrete-time linear temporal operators next, until, weak yesterday, and since. In addition, it contains an indexed set of unary modal operators agent i knows.We consider the semantic constraint of the unique initial states for this logic. For the logic, we present a sequent calculus with a restricted cut rule. We prove the soundness and completeness of the sequent calculus presented. We prove the decidability of provability in the considered calculus as well. So, this calculus can be used as a basis for automated theorem proving. The proof method for the completeness can be used to construct complete sequent calculi with a restricted cut rule for this logic with other semantical constraints as well. Published in Lietuvos Matematikos Rinkinys, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 427–437, July–September, 2006.     

A multisymplectic framework for classical field theory and the calculus of variations II: space + time decomposition

In a previous paper I laid the foundations of a covariant Hamiltonian framework for the calculus of variations in general. The purpose of the present work is to demonstrate, in the context of classical field theory, how this covariant Hamiltonian formalism may be space + time decomposed. It turns out that the resulting “instantaneous” Hamiltonian formalism is an infinite- dimensional version of Ostrogradski 's theory and leads to the standard symplectic formulation of the initial value problem. The salient features of the analysis are: (i) the instantaneous Hamiltonian formalism does not depend upon the choice of Lepagean equivalent; (ii) the space + time decomposition can be performed either before or after the covariant Legendre transformation has been carried out, with equivalent results; (iii) the instantaneous Hamiltonian can be recovered in natural way from the multisymplectic structure inherent in the theory; and (iv) the space + time split symplectic structure lives on the space of Cauchy data for the evolution equations, as opposed to the space of solutions thereof.     

Teaching ideas and activities for classroom: integrating technology into the pedagogy of integral calculus and the approximation of definite integrals

The purpose of this article is to offer teaching ideas in the treatment of the definite integral concept and the Riemann sums in a technology-supported environment. Specifically, the article offers teaching ideas and activities for classroom for the numerical methods of approximating a definite integral via left- and right-hand Riemann sums, along with midpoint and trapezoidal Riemann sums. The activities demonstrate innovative and creative ways of integrating technology, in particular, GeoGebra dynamic software, into the pedagogy of college-level integral calculus. It also provides, among other things, interesting and original teaching ideas incorporating technology, and an evaluation of these activities by the students themselves who experienced these activities with the GeoGebra dynamic software.