MathExcel: Calculus Among Friends   - by Mike Freeman Some advice and reflections on this plan Treisman's model is a simple one, and I would recommend that programs try to stay with its parameters. I also advocate that whoever runs something like this should go all out to make it work right the first time. Part of this involves allowing faculty extra time -- faculty members who do this successfully spend time doing unconventional things such as reaching students directly to make the contact personal. The institution should recognize this time officially. There is a premium of resources required to mount a program like this to the necessary level of quality. And the premium comes from the release time that I recommend faculty be given to do the job right. I've promoted the Model to other departments of the University. Prof. Joe Wilson adapted the Model to Chemistry and created ChemExcel; Prof. John Christopher from Physics initiated PhysExcel. Both programs, now in their third year, are critical basic courses in their discipline and very successful, with growing enrollments. BioExcel, in its second year, is the Workshop adaptation of the first course in the Biology major. Not only is the program robust relative to the disciplines, but also within the discipline it can be done at almost any level. We've also set up a version of MathExcel for our prospective elementary school teachers, all of whom have to take a one-year math sequence. Math class is not one of their happier experiences. They usually don't look upon it as an opportunity for professional enhancement; they compare it to going to the dentist. The experience they have with it probably does nothing to enhance their confidence or their taste for mathematics, and if they lack those positive attitudes, you can be pretty sure that they'll pass that on to their own students. We've been worried about this for a long time. So we're going to run MathExcel for these prospective teachers this coming year. The goal will be first to give these students a happier experience with math and build their confidence in it -- we hope they'll transmit that attitude in their classrooms instead of the negative ones we see so often. Also, if they have a happy experience with collaborative learning, we think they'll be much more likely to adopt collaborative learning techniques in their own classrooms. Tell me more about this: A general description The MathExcel Leaders and Workshops Some advice and reflections on this plan Why I like this activity Sample Worksheet 1 Sample Worksheet 2 Advantages to MathExcel Comments from MathExcel students More about Mike Freeman

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