THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INQUIRY BASED LEARNING UNIT FOR INTEGRAL CALCULUS: THE CASE OF VOLUMES OF SOLIDS OF REVOLUTION

Abstract

The latest official national curriculum published by the Turkish Ministry of Education, now formally requires high-school mathematics teachers to actively incorporate computer software in their teaching. The primary purpose of this study is to demonstrate the development of an inquiry based learning unit especially geared for high school mathematics students and teachers for the general concept of integral calculus. The main theme chosen as a case for this proposed inquiry unit, is on volumes of solids of revolution of real life daily objects. As a result, the primary purpose will provide a report about a practical example of using pedagogically driven mathematics software, 3D digital modeling coupled with hands-on real life examples all embedded in a constructivist learning environment. A secondary goal of this study is to expose pre-service high-school mathematics teachers to this inquiry unit as a teacher and student. Finally, the shared experiences about the interconnected nature of knowledge construction through a double “lens”, that is as a teacher and students through collaboratively building, testing and reflecting on their learning process will be reported.