Many calculus students have difficulty with
power series questions. This session will examine explorations of power
series using the TI-89 and precalculus techniques that help students
understand how to generate and use power series to represent functions.
Classroom ready handouts will be provided.
Areas of mathematics education involved with this paper: problem
solving, use of technology, classroom practices, rich learning tasks,
and improving curriculum.
The goals of this session are to demonstrate how we can use
calculator technology, computer algebra, and precalculus mathematics to
generate power series that model functions. We will develop power series
models that are normally introduced only at the calculus level. We
believe that many calculus students have difficulties with power series
because they must learn power series and calculus techniques
simultaneously. If they had a better understanding of power series
before applying them in calculus they would have more success learning
this topic. This session will share several handouts that use calculator
explorations of power series. We will discuss typical student questions
that arise from these investigations. We will describe how to generate
additional investigations that are suitable for your classes. We
encourage participants to actively question and share.