Student Assessment in Calculus: A Report of the Nsf Working Group on Assessment in Calculus (M a a Notes)

If you teach calculus, you should read this book. If you want to know what mathematics your students understand, or if you want to know how to find out what they understand, this book contains essential information for you.

It doesn't matter whether you teach a reform or traditional course, whether you have large or small sections, or whether you use lectures or laboratories. The bottom line is the same: When all is said and done, what counts is what our studentsunderstand. And that's what Student Assessment in Calculusis about.

Over the last ten years calculus instruction has changed in numerous ways. Whether they were trying on new ideas or following he more traditional routes towards conceptual understanding, both individual faculty and departments needed to know if their instruction was effective. To help deal with that issue, the National Science Foundation brought together a Working Group of experts in students' mathematical thinking, in assessment, and in calculus reform. The goals of their work were to:

-develop a framework to tailor calculus instruction to the students' needs;
-describe how to make use of a range of techniques to test what students know. These techniques include multiple-choice tests or short essay questions, student portfolios and "clinical" interviews;
-summarize major goals of the reform movement and describe the challenges faced by those who are taking a closer look at how students learn;
-focus on further research on how students learn;
-illustrate the ways in which calculus projects try (via exams, papers, projects, etc.) to find out what their students have learned.

This book is the result of those efforts. If you teach calculus, if you want to see examples of useful assessment techniques, or if you are interested in issues of how to measure student learning in mathematics, then there is a lot for you here.