ED-MEDIA 1999 Proceedings Book - Association for the ...

Designing a Course Web-Site to Supplement the Teaching of Part-Time
Engineering Mathematics Course in Singapore Polytechnic:
Introduction to Calculus (A prototype) [1]
Chao Yunn Chyi
Maths/Science Department
Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore
(Chaoyc@sp.edu.sg)
1. Introduction
A problem one encounters when teaching the part-time Engineering math courses in Singapore
Polytechnic (SP) is the lack of resources available for the part-time (PT) students outside of classes. The typical
PT student is a person who works full-time and attends classes at night part time. In this scenario, there is
typically a continuous 3-hour lecture, once per week. PT students are expected to master the material as it is
being presented, complete homework based on those topics, and quite often be ready to demonstrate their
knowledge by completing a quiz or turning in homework at the next meeting. Variability in ability among the
students and the short meeting time make it hard for the instructor to meet the needs of individual students and
therefore the ones who need the most help do not get adequate attention. This lack of individual attention often
leads to PT students having difficulty with the homework exercises. In the case of Calculus, help from friends is
rare due to the nature of the subject. And to travel to the campus to seek the instructor would make sense only if
the instructor is a full-time employee, and besides, PT students may not have the time to find the instructor outside
of class. These difficulties are tackled by designing a web-site to supplement the first semester Calculus course.
We called it the ITC (Introduction to Calculus) web-site.
2. The ITC web-site (A prototype) http://www.sp.edu.sg/department/ms/Math/ITC/index.html
The site aims at helping the PT students to obtain a more thorough understanding of the topics, and
allows more advanced students to go in-depth and explore, making use of the vast resources from the Internet.
Students and the instructor may use the discussion corner in ITC to conduct discussion asynchronously and work
collaboratively. The site discusses the topics of Calculus on a weekly basis, following the syllabus of Calculus I.
In the prototype presented here, a single topic on "Newton’s Method - an application of derivatives" is selected.
The ITC web-site is presently on trial to a class of PT Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering students taking
the Engineering Mathematics 2 (EM2) module in Singapore Polytechnic.
2. The Design
The ITC web-site was designed to allow self-paced learning and to tap the affordances of networks and
webs, i.e. increase access to information; to communication; and to collaboration (Brackett, 1998). Eight
components: Lecture Notes, Guided practice, On-line quiz, Homework, Beyond the Basics, Discussion Corner,
Tools and FAQ were included in the web-site to achieve the objectives.
(1) Lecture Notes--This component gives a summary of the face-to-face lecture on the topic of the week. Students
could check in on this page to revise their own notes at their own pace. In particular, interactive examples (Java
applets) are incorporated to allow the learners to observe the graphical representations of Newton’s Method with
different inputs.
(2) Guided Practice--This is a place where students can go over more examples in detail. This component
contains samples of questions with guided solutions in a step by step manner. The students will have the option to
supply the “next step” or ask for further hints or solutions.
[1] This project was first developed to fulfill the course requirement of T525-Designing Educational Experiences for Networks
and Webs (Prof. George Brackett) at Harvard University. It was a joint project with my friends Maria Coulson and Robin
Losey. The URL of the web-site: http://www.sp.edu.sg/department/ms/Math/ITC/index.html