CONNECTEDNESS DIMENSION OF PRODUCTIVE PEDAGOGIES IN STUDENT'S UNDERSTANDING TO CONCEPTS OF DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS

Abstract

Undergraduate students’ understanding of concepts that they have learned usually is not long lasting. This is due to two aspects; first is the inappropriate teaching approach and the second is students’ weakness in connecting their prior knowledge to comprehend a new topic. One of pedagogical frameworks that includes connectedness dimension is so called Productive Pedagogies. In this research, we implemented the framework, especially connectedness dimension in teaching the subject of Differential Calculus, topics Absolute Value, Range and Domain of functions, and Limit and Continuity of Functions for first year students of Mathematics Department of Unesa. We planned and tried a teaching approach that facilitates students to use their prior knowledge to understand the topics being taught. At the end of the teaching and learning process we gave students a quiz about the topics and analyzed their works and then triangulated the results by interviewing a number of students. The results show that students’ level of connecting the topics to their prior knowledge plays a central role in understanding the concepts being taught