ERIC Number: EJ913355
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1744-2710
EISSN: N/A
Numerical Integration with GeoGebra in High School
Herceg, Dorde; Herceg, Dragoslav
International Journal for Technology in Mathematics Education, v17 n4 p205-210 2010
The concept of definite integral is almost always introduced as the Riemann integral, which is defined in terms of the Riemann sum, and its geometric interpretation. This definition is hard to understand for high school students. With the aid of mathematical software for visualisation and computation of approximate integrals, the notion of definite integral and its calculation is more easily adopted by students. Applets running on computer algebra systems, such as Mathematica and on dynamic mathematics software, such as GeoGebra, can calculate the value of the Riemann sum or some other approximation formula, and can also produce appropriate graphics. However, applets solve the whole problem in one step, and therefore are not well suited for self study. A student using such applets only needs to learn how to activate them. Our aim is to use the computer in such a way which would free the students from tedious work, but still require them to learn the theory of numerical integration. We propose a set of GeoGebra tools which enable the students to separately perform each step of numerical integration, and to visually represent these steps. That way, the notion of definite integral is more easily understood and accepted by the students. This paper presents the tools for numerical integration which we developed, as well as our experience from using the tools in classroom. (Contains 3 tables and 7 figures.)
Descriptors: Computer Software, Computers, Geometric Concepts, Calculus, Algebra, High School Students, Secondary School Mathematics, Geometry, Visualization, Computation, Mathematical Concepts, Mathematics Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A