Teaching functions to pre-calculus students: an electronic-workbook

Teaching college pre-calculus is traditionally done in large sections, usually complemented with separate and smaller tutoring sections where students get to discuss problems with a tutor or a professor. The introduction of electronic workbooks, intelligent tutors, and computer assisted instruction into this traditional setting could result in higher achievement on the students part. This paper presents the design of an electronic workbook for practicing the concept of mathematical function. An electronic workbook for this material can show multiple function representations simultaneously and allow a student to manipulate one and observe the result in the others. This should make it easier for the student to learn the relationships between the three representations, and thus help in learning the concept of functions. This paper reports on an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of an electronic workbook (e-workbook) for pre-calculus students learning the concept of mathematical function. The results provide support for the use of this e-workbook as a complement to traditional classes.