During my Calculus II teaching in Fall 2015 at Washington State University (WSU), several students told me that “Volume
s” is one of the most difficult topics in Calculus II, and they also told me “it is difficult to apply what we learned from the course’s textbook to find the volume of solid correctly without getting at least some minor mistakes”. I told them: “I will show you that “Volumes” is the easiest topic in Calculus II by changing the method of “Volumes” teaching form traditional (memorization) one to modern (interactive) one”. A good math teacher is the one who can listen to students’ concerns and apply whatever possible to help them understand the material in an interactive and interesting way. The following is one example out of many examples that I do in my Calculus II class to help my students understand the course’s material in interactive way using real-life applications:
In conclusion, if we apply real-life examples to our courses’ materials as I did in this example, then we can create an interactive-based math class.
To see more examples like this and other interactive methods, please see my course webpage. Best of luck and feel free to reach out if you have questions!
References:
Kaabar, M. K. A. (2012). Mohammed Kaabar Website, Available at http://www.mohammed-kaabar.net
