The Learning and Teaching of Calculus: Ideas, Insights and Activities

This book is for people who teach calculus – and especially for people who teach student teachers, who will in turn teach calculus. The calculus considered is elementary calculus of a single variable. The book interweaves ideas for teaching with calculus content and provides a reader-friendly overview of research on learning and teaching calculus along with questions on educational and mathematical discussion topics. Written by a group of international authors with extensive experience in teaching and research on learning/teaching calculus both at the school and university levels, the book offers a variety of approaches to the teaching of calculus so that you can decide the approach for you. Topics covered include A history of calculus and how calculus differs over countries today Making sense of limits and continuity, differentiation, integration and the fundamental theorem of calculus (chapters on these areas form the bulk of the book) The ordering of calculus concepts (should limits come first?) Applications of calculus (including differential equations) The final chapter looks beyond elementary calculus. Recurring themes across chapters include whether to take a limit or a differential/infinitesimal approach to calculus and the use of digital technology in the learning and teaching of calculus. This book is essential reading for mathematics teacher trainers everywhere.