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This course focuses on the reasoning and technical skills necessary for students to become proficient in applying the mathematical concepts and tools of calculus. In keeping with the goals of the current reform movement, a primary goal of this course is to improve student mastery of the concept of function. This mastery is an essential ingredient of the effective use of mathematics to identify, represent, and solve a wide variety of problems that arise in other disciplines. In order for the learner to achieve this mastery, it is necessary that he/she acquire the ability to move fluidly among the various human-readable representations of functions. Consequently, this course addresses a multi-representation mastery including written descriptions in ordinary English, graphical representations, computational representations, and symbolic representations. In order to facilitate the learning process the primary learning resource is a computer-based interactive math text, using the Waterloo Maple Software System. Learning to use the Maple mathematical software and gaining facility with the interactive text are both requirements of the course. In addition, the learning goals, content, assessment,
and implementation of this course have been refocused and redesigned to
ensure that pharmacy students will find their calculus experience both
appealing and useful. In order to address this pedagogical challenge, I
have written a computer-based interactive text, two hardcopy workbooks,
and an Internet text (under development) "Calculus for Kinetic Modeling
(CKM)." This interactive text has been designed to emphasize the
introduction of precalculus and calculus concepts using exploratory problem-solving
and visualization. A primary goal and innovation of this project has been
to provide pharmacy students the opportunity to acquire a mathematical
understanding of the basics of kinetic modeling, including an introduction
to reaction kinetics, Michaelis-Menten enzyme kinetics, Makoid-Banakar
drug dissolution, and several first-order drug absorption models.
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