2012-13 Teacher Professional Development Grants (9-12) Recipient

Integrating Technology and Deriving Student Success    

Currently my students use calculators to graph functions and solve problems. The first goal of "Integrating Technology and Deriving Student Success" is to expand this experience to incorporate richer calculator based activities so students gain a much deeper understanding of the ideas of limits, instantaneous rates, derivatives and integrals. My school corporation recently purchased mobile computer labs. My second goal will be to learn more about the program Mathematica, which is used at a local college to teach calculus, and to incorporate activities involving Mathematica into my class using the mobile labs. To accomplish these goals I will complete three graduate level classes one focusing on incorporating calculators and two emphasizing Mathematica. Additionally my plan will provide time to restructure my current Calculus curriculum. The integration of this technology will derive student success in my AP Calculus class.