PROCEEDINGS OF THE 18TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2015
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The textbook, the teacher, and the derivative: Examining community college instructors’ use of their textbook when teaching about derivatives in a first semester calculus class
Page: 678
Initial qualitative work with five community college calculus instructors indicated that these teachers not only modified their textbook when introducing the concept of the derivative, but also formally and informally evaluated their text. In addition, during classroom observations and interviews, these teachers did not distinguish clearly between the idea of the derivative as an object or an operator. This preliminary report details these findings and proposes questions for further research.