14. starptautiskā konference 2012 - Latvijas Jūras akadēmija

Proceedings of 14th International conference „Maritime Transport and Infrastructure - 2012”USE OF LEARNING MATERIALS IN CONTEXT OF CALCULUS COURSEAleksandrs Grachovs*, Ingrida Veilande***Latvian MaritimeAcademy, 5B Flotes st, LV-1016, Latvia, E-mail: shapeshftr17@gmail.com** Latvian MaritimeAcademy, 5B Flotes st, LV-1016, Latvia, E-mail: i.veiland@gmail.comAbstractThe enquiry about the mastering calculus course between the LMA students is performed. Reasons ofrelatively low evaluation results of students’ final tests are discussed. The necessity and availability ofinternet materials are investigated.KEY WORDS: calculus, study methods, internet resources, free software.IntroductionThe studying specificity of high schools strongly differs from those learning methods, whichare used in Latvian schools. Students are motivated to be more independent. Lack of knowledge inmath has a great influence on mastering calculus course in higher education institutions. One of thetasks of this work is to inspect learning methods of Latvian Maritime Academy (LMA) students anddefine possible deficiency. The other task is to make up modern possibilities of independent work anduse of internet materials to broaden and confirm the knowledge range of students.EnquiryAn enquiry has been made to get a general overview of how students handle calculus relatedhomework. Respectively, the enquiry covered the frequency, length, independence, use of variousmaterials in relation to calculus. The enquiry had covered 74 first course Latvian Maritime Academy(LMA) students, giving a wide range of answers for analyze.The enquiry showed, that 12% of students do homework every day, whereas 68% of studentsdo it one or several times per week, leaving 20% of students behind, who do homework on rareoccasions. Most students (that is 81%) spend less than 25% to 30% of their time for theory, about 15%spend half of their time on it, while only 4% of all students study theory, spending 60% or more oftheir time on it.Pointing out the independency of doing homework, the enquiry had shown that 77% ofstudents use internet materials to help their studies, while 23% of them do not use such materials.Also, the enquiry had shown that 59% of students use LMA library materials to help their studies,26% of them do not, 14% of them use their own books as help resources, leaving as little as 1% ofstudents who use materials from other libraries.Finally, the enquiry had covered learning methods in relation to mastering course of calculus.Results are following (multiple answers on this question were possible, therefore the overallpercentage exceeds 100%: see Fig. 1: Learning methods): 58% of all respondents only do homeworktasks, 35% of students do some additional tasks, 39% of them look for similar tasks with explanations,31% of students repeatedly read their lecture conspectus to get a deeper understanding of the subject,and finally 20% of them make extra notes and use books as teaching aids.85