Bio

Dan has worked for 25 years teaching high-school students in math and computer science. He is currently the Upper School Mathematics Department Chair at Taipei American School in Taiwan and previously led the mathematics department at Holy Names Academy and other schools in Washington State. He worked as a reader and table leader for the AP Computer Science Exam for 12 years. Dan’s background is in educational leadership, and he is always looking for ways to improve mathematics education. Dan is a Scoutmaster, and he enjoys hiking and spending time with his family.

Computational Essay

The Chain Rule »

Project: Computational Dialogs in AP Calculus

Goal of the project:

Create homework assignments for AP Calculus AB that use Mathematica. Students will develop competency in both the Wolfram Language and differential calculus.

Summary of work:

Nine assignments were created covering the core curriculum of differential calculus. The focus is on using Mathematica’s abilities to investigate and develop an understanding of calculus concepts. Students enter answers to questions in text cells and run code cells to investigate and check answers. Basic Wolfram Language input is initially provided as a scaffold.

Results and future work:

The nine assignments cover the definition of the derivative; differentiation rules; linear motion; trig derivatives; the chain rule; derivative graphs; implicit differentiation; and derivatives of inverse trig, exponential and logarithmic functions. Future work will include derivative applications such as optimization and related rates and integral calculus.