![]() It is particularly important that the calculus taught in high school should be a substantive course that prepares students for further work in mathematics. These recommendations are intended to back up the teachers who are trying to resist rushing students into calculus before they are properly prepared. Many schools are under pressure to offer a course that is nominally an AP Calculus course, even if they expect few students will be able to pass the AP exam. This is why many students enroll in AP courses but do not take the examinations. One of the inevitable weaknesses of the AP program is that student enrollment in an AP class appears on the transcript that is reviewed for college admission, but the test that evaluates whether or not the student has learned this material at a college level is not administered until after college acceptances have been sent out. I believe that these recommendations need to be repeated and re-emphasized. It means that the course should be taught with the expectation that students who perform satisfactorily will be able to place into the succeeding college calculus course. ![]() This means that the goal of the course should be to give students the same breadth of topics and mastery of calculus obtained by students taking such a course in college. When calculus is taught in high school it should be a college-level course. Solid mathematical preparation is far more important than exposure to calculus.Ģ. In spite of the pressures to take calculus while still in high school, students should never short-change their mathematical preparation in subjects such as algebra, geometry, or trigonometry. With this in mind, the presidents of the MAA and NCTM issued a joint statement in 1986 with two strong recommendations which I paraphrase here:ġ. Many mathematicians deplore this movement of calculus from the college to the high school curriculum, but the pressures are too strong to stop or even substantially slow it. ![]() It has helped to create strong growth in AP programs across the board. Competition for admission to the best colleges and universities is fierce. The pressure to take calculus in high school is understandable. A second article, ?The Changing Face of Calculus: First- and Second-Semester Calculus as College Courses,? will look at the implications for how we teach calculus in colleges and universities. This article will address the implications for calculus taught in high schools. ![]() We should recognize that the students who take first-semester calculus in college may need more support and be less likely to continue with further mathematics than those of a generation ago. We should address the particular needs of those students who arrive in college with credit for calculus.ģ. We should ensure that students who take calculus in high school are prepared for the further study of mathematics.Ģ. By the time of the next CBMS survey in 2005?06, we can expect that more students will take an AP Calculus exam than will take mainstream Calculus I in the Fall of 2005 in all 2-year and 4-year institutions combined.įirst-semester calculus has become a high school topic for most of our strongest students. This number is far larger than the number of students who took mainstream first-semester calculus in all four-year undergraduate programs in the Fall of 2000. In 2004 over 225,000 high school students took the AP calculus exam. AP Calculus enrollments from The College Board (most recent years available at ). Fall two- and four-year college and university enrollments from. Figure 1: Mainstream Calculus I Enrollments.
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