A Transition Course from Advanced Placement to College Calculus

Abstract

In the Spring of 2007, a group of highly motivated mathematics graduate students conducted a review of Duke's Calculus curriculum. They focused on two main problems. The first problem is the result of a very positive trend: a growing number of students are earning AP credit for Calculus I in high school. However, this results in Calculus II classes with two very different groups of students, i.e., freshmen and upperclassmen. It is difficult to construct a Calculus II course that caters to the disparate needs of these two groups of students. The second problem is that Duke's Department of Mathematics has been unable to come to a consensus over the debate between Reform Calculus and Traditional Calculus. Members of the department finally settled on a compromise. Two Calculus II courses are currently offered: (1) a Laboratory Calculus course that contains many elements of Reform Calculus and (2) a more traditional course. This presents a confusing choice to incoming students. The graduate student committee carefully crafted a Calculus II course that would hopefully solve both these problems. We will present these problems and the proposed solution in more detail. We will also discuss our experience with running experimental sections of this course and its future in the Duke mathematics curriculum. This article may be of interest to faculty or graduate students who want to take a hard look at the courses at their own institutions, especially if faced with a growing number of students who enroll with AP Calculus credit.