First time taking Calculus 1 and I only got a B

[symbolipoint]

Of course, getting active should take different forms. It's not only sitting alone behind you desk and solving dull problems, but also meeting with other students and discuss the material, solving the problems together, explaining each other something not yet understood etc. If the "Corona semesters" with online lectures have taught me one thing: There's nothing that can substitute for personally discussing the material among students also also among students and professors.

I think compared to "self-learning" everything with a textbook this additional methods to learn and teach enable you to learn all this much material in one semester. Self-learning the same amount of material for yourself alone from a textbook takes much longer!

The posting deserves at least a few more LIKES than you will receive.

 

[symbolipoint]

limits, differentiation and integration is already covered in high school math.

Where? Which "high school math" courses?

 

[symbolipoint]

Curriculum varies by state. Here's the one for New Jersey: https://www.nj.gov/education/modelcurriculum/math/. The standard curriculum stops at Algebra I & II and Geometry.

Some high schools also offer a Trigonometry or a "Pre-Calculus" course (supposed to be like "Elementary Functions" but can often be much weaker).

 

[malawi_glenn]

Where

In Europe. I knew things were different in the US, but not learning basic calculus in high school is shocking to me! Do you know of any website I can learn about high school curricula / programs in the US?

 

[CrysPhys]

In Europe. I knew things were different in the US, but not learning basic calculus in high school is shocking to me! Do you know of any website I can learn about high school curricula / programs in the US?

Not a simple task.

* As I mentioned before, in the US, each state sets its own school curriculum. As a starting point, you can Google: "<name of state> high school mathematics curriculum" . You will typically be directed to a state Department of Education site.

* But the curriculum typically specifies the minimum requirements for public high schools in the state. In the US, a 'public' school is a school funded by tax dollars; students pay no tuition. Actual course offerings vary substantially among specific public high schools, even within a local municipality. Within a single large city (such as New York, Boston, Chicago, ...), the curriculum can range from egregiously abysmal to suberbly excellent (some probably will meet even your expectations ). In a previous post, I cited the New Jersey state curriculum. Is calculus required? No. Is calculus offered in the high school down the street from me? Yes.

* Adding to the complexity, there are also private schools in the US. Here students pay tuition. The variation in curriculum is even greater.

* So, for a comprehensive view, you would need to sample the websites of individual public and private high schools across the US.

 

[martinbn]

In Europe.

I am not an expert in geography, but that is not a country.

 

[malawi_glenn]

I am not an expert in geography, but that is not a country.

Was not asked about country. Let me say european union then

 

[Vanadium 50]

that is not a country.

Despite the attempts, sometimes with treaties, sometimes with armies.

 

[martinbn]

Was not asked about country. Let me say european union then

That is 27 countries. Do they all have the same school system and curriculum?

 

[vanhees71]

Well, and within Germany we have 16 different curricula for each state, and it's already just a desaster, what's called "math" in most of them, but some calculus for sure everybody learns before entering university. In Germany the problem is that after the socalled "Pisa shock", i.e., the realization around 2000 that the results in the STEM subjects on German high schools is substandard compared to other countries, they started a "reform program", which introduced what they call "competences". The result is that they now teach the opposite of the spirit of true mathematics, i.e., they learn to solve a certain class of problems without understanding what's really behind the methods they use. Sometimes you have students in the first semester, who know how to "discuss a function", i.e., calculating the zeroes, extrema, symptotics etc. of a given function of one real variable, but when you ask them about the meaning of the derivative (the slope of the tangent of the graph at the point under consideration), they have no clue. Then it's no surprise that they don't know, why in a minimum or maximum the derivative should be 0, let alone why this is only necessary but not sufficient for having really and extremum, etc.

The consequence is that we have high quotes of failure in the STEM subjects in the early semesters. About 50% of the students quit their studies in these subjects, and the main reason they give in studies about this sad phenomenon is the "unexpectedly high amount of math" they need to study a natural or engineering science.

 

[malawi_glenn]

About 50% of the students quit their studies in these subjects, and the main reason they give in studies about this sad phenomenon is the "unexpectedly high amount of math" they need to study a natural or engineering science

There are also people who quit social science programmes due to "unexpectedly high amount of reading" ;)

 

[vanhees71]

Well, sociology... Recently there was an article in a German newspaper by a german-philology professor who complained about the fact that young scholars produce more and more papers with the result that nobody reads all these papers anymore, because they are too busy to write them...

 

[malawi_glenn]

Well, sociology... Recently there was an article in a German newspaper by a german-philology professor who complained about the fact that young scholars produce more and more papers with the result that nobody reads all these papers anymore, because they are too busy to write them...

Publish or perish

 

[vela]

What mass classes do you, and others, recommend taking during a 8 week class? Which math is "easy" to absorb?

If a student is a good learner and can devote several hours each day to keep up with the course, I think Calc 1 can be done in eight weeks. For many students, however, they'd be better off taking the course during the regular school year.

 

[symbolipoint]

There are also people who quit social science programmes due to "unexpectedly high amount of reading" ;)

Seemingly very credible!

A reason some students avoid social science courses is because such courses and that topic give no feel of being well-structured, and therefore seem impossible to learn. This changes (for some people) with increasing maturity.

 

[symbolipoint]

What are the requirments to enroll in Calc 1 in US?

That from a post now more than a month old, but the prerequisites are Algebra 1 & 2, Trigonometry, and possibly "Mathematical Analysis" which might be a course of slightly more advanced algebra combined with the main parts of Trigonometry.