Development of Curriculum Units as Basic Course for Calculus Provided for Freshmen with Low Academic Achievement

Abstract

This study was to design, develop, and investigate instructional units for freshmen with low academic achievementto learn before they study calculus. Because the concepts, skills, and theories of function are fundamental for thecalculus course but the below average students were not familiar with the basic knowledge and ability in functionwhen they studied in the high schools and it will affect their learning calculus, the investigator in this study hasanalyzed the calculus course to find out the relevant functional concepts, skills, and theories and taken some actualresearch studies as references to deliberately design, compile, and write an instructional unit on function. Then theteaching material was tried out in the classroom. During trying out the unit, the investigator found that students werealso unfamiliar with the concepts and operations of numbers and sets. Therefore, the investigator thought that it isindispensable to integrate the content of numbers and sets into the course. Finally the curriculum units includingnumbers, sets, and functions have been completed to be a basic course for calculus. After preparing the curriculumunits, the teaching materials were sent to experts to ask for reviewing and giving feedback for revising the content.Then the curriculum will be tried out again in the beginning of the calculus course to test the degree ofappropriateness and find where should be revised again. During the next year, a formal instruction will be carried out.Finally, it is to complete a set of curriculum units on number systems, sets, and functions for freshmen to take asbasic content for calculus course.