The problematic of teaching and learning

calculation for engineering

Summary:

The learning and teaching of mathematics, in general, and calculus, in particular, present
one of the greatest difficulties for university-level students, including students of
Engineering careers. The approach to this problem is still far from finding precise and
effective solutions. The tendency to reduce to arithmetic and algorithmic processes the
algebra that supports the learning of calculus has only complicated things more because it
leads to a decontextualization of the discipline. It is then necessary that teachers in
calculation reflect on the characteristics of what is understood by Engineering to try to put
the calculation at the service of this, since the role it plays is decisive.

Keywords: Mathematics, algebra, calculus, Engineering, learning, teaching.

Teaching and learning Mathematics, and specifically Calculus, represents one of the major
difficulties for college students, including engineering students. So far, the methods used
to face such difficulties have not been successful; reducing the basic algebra to arithmetic
and algorithmic processes has led to a process of de-contextualization of that discipline.
Thus, calculus educators need to reflect on the characteristics of engineering in order to
make calculus an educational instrument for engineering education.

Keywords: Mathematics, Calculus, Engineering, learning, teaching.

The Problem of Teaching and Learning Calculus in Engineering

Introduction

Research conducted since the 1980s reveals that the teaching and learning of
mathematics is one of the most significant problems within any educational model. The
levels of promotion and repetition in mathematics courses, both in secondary education
and in university courses, are two indicators of this problem, whose human dimension is
linked to frustration, both of the students and educators, of There the importance of being
analyzed.

In today's society there is no discussion about the importance and relevance of learning
mathematics. Such learning has always occupied a relevant place in the generation of
knowledge and culture for its role in Natural, Social, Economic and more recent Sciences
in Communication and Information Sciences (Ministry of Public Education, 2012). It is also
considered that such learning contributes to the individual developing cognitive and
metacognitive resources (Rigo, Paéz and Gómez, 2009; Gómez, 1991); However, it is not
completely clear how this learning takes place, so there are doubts that the aspects raised
are being achieved.

Frequently, mathematics is associated with "correct reasoning," defined by Aristotelian

logic, and the motivational and subjective aspects of the learner are neglected. However,
variables such as motivation, affectivity, imagination, communication, linguistic aspects
and the ability to represent play a fundamental role in shaping mathematical ideas in
students (Cantoral, 2002), although in general these are They have neglected to make
learning discipline difficult.

This has led to mathematics being taught in a massive, decontextualized and

algorithmized way, which turns their learning into a formal process, linked to a series of
rules, axioms, postulates and theorems, constituting these aspects an end in itself far of
everyday reality, even in many cases such learning is reduced to a level that borders on
arithmetic thanks to the use of calculators, where the only thing that becomes important is
the obtaining, hopefully correct, of the answers to the exercises present in some text
(García, 2009) or proposed by the teacher.

In the case of the calculation for the Engineering careers, their learning takes place in a
contradictory framework, it is argued that this constitutes the basis of the professional
development of the future Engineer; However, its teaching has been formalized through
the use and abuse of algebra (Artigue, 1998; Camarena, 2009), and has even been
arithmetized in the exposed framework.

Due to this, the learning of the calculus tends to present a high level of decontextualization
and disarticulation with respect to the remaining courses of the careers (particularly of
Engineering), which forces the student to perform the titanic work of being he who seeks to
integrate different knowledge learned as a whole, an aspect that is obviously not easy to
achieve. Against this, the option of learning and teaching calculus based on retaking the
historical origin of the discipline has emerged, so that it contributes to solving problems
related to nature and the optimal use of its resources (Zúñiga, 2007; Camarena, 2010b).

In this way n this way, it is vital that the teacher who teaches calculus reflects on the
problem that both his students and himself face, in order to be able to determine possible
causes and project consequences, and thus rethink their role, given that depending on the
perception of their own work , can induce the student to see in mathematics a formalized
and cold resource that is worth by itself or an instrument to solve problems, leaving the
formalisms for professional mathematicians.

Difficulties of learning mathematics at the university level (calculation)

In contemporary society, mathematics is considered one of the most important knowledge

disciplines, this is because the discipline can help students to develop their exploration,
justification, representation, discussion, description, research and prediction skills (Idris ,
2009; Ministry of Public Education, 2012); aspects that contribute significantly to the
development of "competencies", understood as skills, knowledge, aptitudes and attitudes,
readiness to learn, skills and abilities, capable of generating cultural capital (personal
development), social capital (citizen participation ) and human capital (capacity to be
productive) (Delors, 1997; Frade, 2009; Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, 2006).

The above is possible if we consider that through mathematics the cognitive subject can
learn to organize and structure the information that he perceives or receives in a daily or
intellectually created situation, in order to identify the most relevant aspects, discover
regularities, relationships and structures that allow you to make conjectures and inferences
from elementary propositions, as well as generalize results from certain constant
behaviors or achieve demonstrations (Guevara, 2007).

If these perceptions are lost, it is possible that an ignorance of what is and for what to do
mathematics is generated, what is its role in the other sciences and areas of knowledge,
why and for what certain contents should be addressed in a program of mathematical
education curricula in particular and not others. The generation of adverse feelings is thus
stimulated in the students, which translate into demotivation by perceiving that
mathematics is disconnected from everyday life (Cantoral, 2002), an aspect that may be
associated with low levels of promotion in all strata of the school system, including
university, regardless of university careers.

Usually it relates to mathematics with technological development, being this one of the
pillars of the Knowledge Society, so that their learning and teaching have become issues
of greater interest and importance particularly in higher education (ANUIES, 2004) . In this
sense, mathematics has been assumed as a "universal language", which is one of the
most important elements for digital literacy capable of enhancing technology management,
hence the need for mastery and application of an essential minimum mathematics by all
citizens (Orozco, 2008).

However, with regard to mathematical language, serious problems arise, since the
"mathematical languages" used by teachers and students are not necessarily the same
(Tall, 1990). Mathematical language is generally learned in school by imposition. In turn, it
is seen as a coded and finished system that occurs in a planned and staggered way that is
taught and transmitted through partial contents, different concepts, procedures and
algorithms increasingly abstract and away from physical expression, which It makes it an
object of knowledge in itself (Alcalá, 2002). Therefore, it is not always possible to become
an effective means of communication between people, except those who know and
manage it with ownership; which may imply that while the teacher uses a technical
language, the students can interpret it colloquially or vice versa, which makes it difficult
and, at times, makes only one interpretation impossible (García, 2012).

These visions of mathematics, as a skills enhancer on the one hand and as a language on
the other, are particularly important at the university level, and very specifically in careers
related to Engineering and Economic Sciences. In these careers, learning mathematics is
vital (Cantoral, 2002), due to the impact they have in terms of problem solving and ability
to communicate results. However, it must be recognized that learning mathematics is one
of the most significant problems at all levels of education systems, including the higher
one. In the case of Costa Rica, This is shown in the Diagnostic Exam applied since 2006
by the School of Mathematics of the University of Costa Rica to new students (School of
Mathematics, UCR, 2012).

For Camarena (2010a), there is no doubt about the above and even states that the high
rate of failure in university courses is a sign of the little interest that many students show in
mathematics due to their "disconnection" with "their" reality and "its" environment, as well
as the disarticulation that exists with the other courses of the courses they attend. This
leads to a permanent conflict that contributes to the feeling that learning mathematics is an
end in itself, contradicting the approach of seeing them as a language within the
knowledge society and as an instrument for many scientific and professional areas. linked
to the development of skills.

Studies in many countries indicate that the problems with learning mathematics are not
local or regional, but worldwide (Tall, 1992; Artigue, 2000 and Camarena, 2010a). Such
problems have been studied both quantitatively and qualitatively in a very detailed manner
in the last three decades, but it is obviously far from being able to solve them, which has
led to the generation of a new discipline of knowledge called "Mathematics Education", the
which goes beyond being a simple cross between pedagogy and mathematics.

Based on this new discipline, the investigations developed are based on the expectation
that it is possible to face the problems of learning mathematics if one takes into account
that such learning is affected by multiple variables. These are both psychological (which
includes cognitive and emotional aspects), as epistemological (which is discussed about
what is to do mathematics), curricular (what is to be learned and when) and didactic (how
to teach and to what) (Lamb, 2005).

Since no one discusses the importance of learning mathematics (since its usefulness and
need is assumed clearly and distinctly), it is located in a privileged position vis-à-vis other
disciplines of human knowledge. Even so, it is usual for many people to wonder about
what aspects of mathematics are those that must be learned by all members of society
and, in the particular case, by university students studying careers linked to Engineering
(Camarena, 2010b).

These questions generally focus on the contents defined in the school curricula of the
educational system (Pulido, 1998), which do not necessarily correspond to the essence of
what it is to do mathematics and much less with the objectives of disciplines such as
engineering. This makes their learning a complex problem that involves, apart from
learning their own knowledge of mathematics, variables such as motivation, affectivity,
imagination, communication, linguistic aspects and the ability to represent (Cantoral,
2002).

One of the most significant causes that hinder the learning of mathematics by students is
that the teaching of the discipline has been carried out, for a long time, from an
"axiomatized", algorithmic and routine perspective. This leads to consider mathematics as
a set of rules and formulas that exist and are worth by themselves, even outside the daily
life and the environment of the subjects, whether they are students or educators (Cordero,
2005; Moreno, 2005).

The aforementioned is aggravated by an educational model that demands of the student

the repetition of thinking schemes product of an algebrization of concepts, this makes
algebra the center of gravity of mathematical knowledge and even arrives at its arithmetic,
by reducing the Algebra to the use of values through the substitution of algebraic
expressions with numerical expressions (García, 2009; Artigue, 1995). This advocates
learning by repetition of exercises similar or equal to those used in class (Moreno, 2005) or
in a text, which leads among other aspects to a loss of imagination, inability to translate
the semantic to the graphic (or representational) and vice versa, and inability to relate
concepts to the environment and everyday life (Tall, 1992).

Although it seems clear that the learning of mathematics should be based on a

construction where simple ideas precede the most complicated (Tall, 1990), it turns out
that in calculus learning, due to the weaknesses generated by the algebrization of
mathematics described, among others, by Artigue (1995), Cantoral (2002) and Camarena
(2010), it is difficult to establish what should be considered as simpler concepts since for
most students all, or almost all concepts, are difficult.

eFocuses regarding the teaching of mathematics (calculation)

In the last fifty years, the teaching of calculus has developed in a unique and contradictory
scenario, marked by reforms and counter-reforms. Suffice it to recall that at the end of the
50s of the 20th century a reform was developed in Europe that advocated mathematics
from a totally deductive point of view (leaving aside the intuitive character and its ability to
solve problems), therefore abstract. In this way, the teaching of the discipline was based
on one: "introduction of set theory, modern symbolism, eradication of Euclidean geometry,
introduction of algebraic structures and axiomatized systems, algebrization of
trigonometry, etc., etc. . " (Ruiz, 1995, pp. 152-153).

Such reform focused more on the management of definitions, theorems, slogans and
postulates and its logical foundation than on the resolution of problems, which reflects a
high level of formalization and axiomatization, which favors a homogenized treatment with
respect to independent curricular content. of the school level and, in the university case, it
allows a massive management of students. This led many teachers to consider that
learning and teaching mathematics constitute an end in themselves, which impacted other
disciplines in a negative way and showed little clarity about the role that mathematics play
in those disciplines for which contribute their knowledge.

The indicated reform generated a kind of dead end that was harshly criticized by Morris
Kleine in the mid-1970s in his book The Failure of Modern Mathematics: Why Juanito
Cannot Add? In this question he questioned the significance of the formal learning of
mathematics because of the profile that this type of mathematics teaching would take,
which favored people assuming algebra as the center of gravity of mathematics and
arithmetic as the simplification of algebra, relying on the use of scientific calculators
(García, 2009).

In the case of calculation, research conducted by Artigue (1995, cited by Salinas and
Alanís, 2009) left evidence that mathematics in general - and particularly calculus - has
been taught from a mechanistic perspective, reducing their learning to practices
algorithmic and algebraic (Idris, 2009), where students privilege the obtaining of an answer
(hopefully the correct one), above the process that leads to this, an aspect that
characterizes learning without understanding (García, 2009).

Artigue (2000) indicates that many of the research in mathematics education related to the
subject coincide in that it is not easy for students to enter the field of Mathematical
Analysis (such as calculus), since this cannot be reduced to a purely algebraic version . In
addition, the calculation is reduced to algebra can be considered as a lesser evil if one
takes into account that learning algebra already faces serious problems (Miller, 2007), so
in many cases you can not even expect an instrumental and algorithmic management of
the calculation.

Although algebra is the basis for mathematical language, it must be taken into account that
it is different from calculus. Each of these fields of mathematics has its own rules and
characteristics, so that what is true in one does not mean that in the other it should be
assumed in the same way. When considering calculus as an extension of algebra, learning
without understanding, weak, contradictory, decontextualized, formal, superficial and
bookish learning is enhanced.

The approach inherited from the reform in the teaching of mathematics, which has led to
algebrization and subsequently to the arithmeticization of calculus, goes against the
historical nature of the emergence of this branch of mathematics, which has been shown
to be linked to the empirical resolution of specific and specific problems, where before the
deductive structure was created, concepts, themes and applications had been worked
intuitively, with physical arguments, drawings and generalizations (González and Waldegg,
1995). This aspect has been more than demonstrated by the history of humanity, given
that formalization and abstraction have always appeared after creation and
experimentation.

Due to this contradiction, a counter-reform led by Artigue (1995) and seconded in the first
decade of the 21st century by Zúñiga (2007) and Camarena (2010 b) began to take shape
in the late 1990s. , in pursuit of learning based on real problems as a way to contextualize
mathematics. A sample of this is the effort called "Mathematics in the context of Science."

In this way, it is possible to consider that in the last three decades, the learning and
teaching of calculus has moved between three great epistemological and didactic
proposals.

A first approach, heir to the reform of the mid-twentieth century, characterized by an

abstract management of mathematics based on the formalism of logical-Aristotelian
thinking, decontextualized and oblivious to everyday reality that included a rigorous
analysis linked to definitions and theorems and Your demonstrations This made the
learning of mathematics a mechanical operation characterized by the use (and abuse) of
formulas and rules without understanding by the student (and even many teachers) which
made algebrization (and even arithmetic) possible, and led to suppression of individuality,
by enclosing the student in a formalism unable to contribute to the development of skills by
acting as a straitjacket that inhibited or hindered the emergence of imagination and
creativity, by colliding with the daily life of the individual.

In response to the above, a more pragmatic model was appealed, characterized by non-
formal learning linked to rules and mechanisms capable of obtaining the solution of
exercises from a text (Tall, 1992). This reduced mathematics to obtaining the correct
answer to any of the exercises that are found in the texts or are proposed in the
evaluations, which meant that the objectives of the curricula of the math course programs
remained isolated and detached from each other. In the case of university studies, it was
also intended that students become able to articulate them as a whole, to be able to model
events of their future professional activity (Camarena and Benítez, 2009), which means to
develop the competence to transfer the mathematical knowledge that has been learned,
separated from any real context, towards everyday practice and especially professional
practice.

A third proposal has raised the importance and need to focus the learning-teaching
process on a new model based on the reflection of reality, turning over it, where
mathematics constitutes a set of intellectual and cognitive instruments capable of enabling
search for solutions to the problems that Humanity faces with respect to the exploitation
and use of natural resources, as proposed by Zúñiga (2007) and Camarena (2010), thus
seeking the development of skills (Delors, 1997; Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development, 2006). The reason for this is to consider mathematics, including
calculus, as a human construction, as an intellectual instrument created by humanity to
solve problems in terms of the man-nature relationship in their daily lives.

The above responds to the fact that calculus constitutes one of the most powerful and
useful intellectual tools available to humanity, whose origins date back to Archimedes (S.
III BC) and its efforts to achieve the calculation of areas and volumes. It was not until
almost 2000 years later, in the seventeenth century, thanks to Descartes and Fermat, that
this area was retaken in order to solve many problems that intrigued mathematicians, such
as the calculation of straight lines tangent to a curve, volumes , determine the existence of
maximums and minimums as well as centers of gravity, etc., within which Newton and
Leibniz stood out, but others were responsible for their formalization over time, such as
Euler, Gauss, Cauchy, Riemann, etc.

Therefore, it is not an easy task to justify the presence and teaching of certain
mathematical contents in service courses, particularly in the areas of Engineering and
Economic Sciences (Espinoza, 2008), so that it is possible to doubt whether The
mathematical knowledge that students are intended to learn and learn in their university
careers is really valid, meaningful and important.
Difficulties in learning calculus in Engineering courses

As indicated above, in the careers of Engineering and Economic Sciences, mathematics is

proposed and assumed as one of the fundamental elements for its development.
Particularly, in the case of Engineering, it is based on the idea that mathematics
constitutes the intellectual base on which the discipline is built. Engineering must be
considered, independent of its area of expertise as:

The profession in which the knowledge of mathematics and natural sciences, obtained
through study, experimentation and practice, is applied with judgment, to develop various
ways of using, in an economic way, the forces and materials of nature in benefit of
humanity. (Melo, 2003, p. 54)

For its part, Chatterjee (2005) believes that Engineering is developed in order to improve
the conditions of human life through the deliberate use of the laws of nature to be able to
exploit its resources optimally, which implies that its interest it is more in achieving
practical applications (that is, in solving problems), where to achieve this it makes use of
mathematics and particularly of calculus.

For its part, Camarena (2010 b) states that many factors are involved in the learning and
teaching of Engineering, among which those related to basic sciences stand out. These
constitute the bases for the careers of this discipline and the learning of mathematics is the
most critical element, which warns that this leads to a situation of weakness in the training
of future engineers, since a learning of mathematics in general , and the calculation in
particular, improperly or incorrectly, can hinder the professional development of the future
engineer.

By reflecting on how to conceptualize what Engineering is based on the proposals of Melo

and Charttejee, and linking this to the proposal of Guevara (2007) regarding what can be
understood by doing mathematics, it is possible to appreciate that there is a great
coincidence, particularly in the implicit demand of the student to relate ingenuity to
abstraction and analysis, which is linked to imagination and reflection, basic elements for
the future Engineer.

This implies that Engineering demands students to develop their reflective capacity in
relation to the problems that the environment presents, where mathematics is an
instrument for finding solutions or answers to them, so that their teaching and Learning
should not be taken lightly. This suggests that the failure of the learning of calculus by
students could be related to an inadequate management of mathematics due to a lack of
knowledge of how to take advantage of the resources offered by algebra, the properties of
numbers, equations and inequations, the geometry and especially the functions.

Even Vrancken, Gregorini, Engler, Mullery Hecklein (2006) say that it is possible that
students can have knowledge in all the previous aspects and still fail to study calculus,
which would mean that the problem is not in the acquisition (or lack of ) knowledge, since
these may become inert in the face of the significance that they should have with respect
to their professional training, but to the fact that the algebra-based education that students
receive before arriving, or when taking calculus courses, It is not related to reality or the
environment, as well as to the Engineering's own needs. This forces many of the students
to have to learn for themselves the differences between algebra and calculus, that is, try to
understand how much algebra is useful to them with respect to the concepts required by
calculus, an aspect that is extremely difficult to achieve in the circumstances in which they
arrive at the university (Miller, 2007).

On the other hand, regardless of the epistemological and didactic approach that the
teacher assumes in calculus, his perception of the what and for what of mathematics, will
be inevitably transferred to the students; that is, the learning of calculus is affected by the
way in which their teaching is given, which may be far from getting students to understand
the concepts and methods of thinking that this part of mathematics demands (Moreno,
2005 ).

According to Bayazit (2010), there is sufficient evidence that teaching practices are
determined by the teacher's approach to how he perceives, manipulates and transmits
mathematical concepts. This leads to students' learning of mathematics differing in
qualitative terms from one another, from one teacher to another, from one course to
another, and even from one career to another.

In this way, it can be affirmed that the problem of learning calculus for Engineering is
linked to its teaching (Idris, 2009), a teaching that often advocates mechanical and
memorial learning based on obtaining a final answer and preferably correct as opposed to
learning that privileges the process, context and understanding in a coherent and clear
manner.

Additionally, to address the problem of learning mathematics in general and calculus in

particular, efforts have been made that include the use of technological resources (Mack,
1992, cited by Moreno, 2005) and the appeal for a more intuitive introduction based on of
solving specific problems (Zúñiga, 2007), in an effort to integrate and coordinate the
numerical, algebraic and graphic approaches that enable the acquisition of ideas and
concepts more significant and profound (Moreno, 2005). This is because reducing the
calculation to a series of rules, or mechanical methods, seems to predispose the cognitive
functioning of students, which affects their motivation and interest, and interferes with their
professional training and future work performance (Zúñiga, 2007 ).

Conclusions

The failure of many students in introductory mathematics courses at university level and
particularly in calculus can be considered related to the approach that teachers have made
in this regard, particularly in high school, of algebra topics, since students Those who enter
universities have previously passed through educational levels that have influenced their
way of seeing, approaching and working in mathematics (Artigue, 2000; Miller, 2007 and
Tall, 1992).

Therefore, it is not necessary, in a simplistic and exclusive way, to accuse the students as
the sole or principal responsible for not having prior knowledge or for being unable to
understand the handling of the concepts in calculation. In any case, they are the product of
a process that algebraized the calculation and arithmetic algebra where, by transitivity, the
calculation has ended up being an extension of arithmetic.

It is possible to consider that the calculation topics developed by specialists in

mathematics, but with little or no training in Engineering, could have a different impact than
if they were developed by specialists in mathematics who have a training in Engineering,
or at least achieve interpret this field of human knowledge, so that they are able to
appreciate mathematics as an instrument that contributes to solving problems posed in
that field. To this must be added the need and importance of the calculation teacher
having knowledge in university teaching, because the fact of being a specialist in an area
of knowledge (mathematics or Engineering) does not guarantee that the teacher is able to
transmit their knowledge or that the students manage to build it.

In the case of having specialists in mathematics with little or no training in Engineering as

calculus teachers, there is a risk of decontextualizing the raison d'être of the calculation in
terms of the needs of the Engineering. In the opposite case, spaces could be opened to
the proposal of Camarena (2010 a and b) on the existence of a Mathematical Engineering
that would improve learning and, consequently, the teaching of mathematics from a
specific perspective of Engineering, providing the necessary intellectual and cognitive
instruments that contribute to mathematics fulfill in the best possible way the functions
assigned to it as a specialized area of human knowledge.

It follows that both the learning and teaching of mathematics at the university level are
developed in different planes that are contradictory and even contradict, since, while one
proposes an ideal world that incorporates the integral formation of the student, formally
promoting the generation of competencies, the others pose a theoretical, axiomatic,
decontextualized and meaningless learning.

On the other hand, a learning of mathematics - and therefore of calculus - seen as an

extension of algebra, which in turn is considered as an extension of arithmetic, generally
linked to an indiscriminate use of calculators, enables that the calculation ends up being
seen as the result of a correct manipulation of formulas, in a context of decontextualization
of mathematics, contradicting the work of the calculation itself.

The algebrization of the calculus and the arithmetization of the algebra have lost sight of
the origin of the calculus and its role in Engineering, leaving aside the importance that for
this has the representational and semantic character of mathematics, and its impact on the
work of the engineers to formulate possible explanations or handling of the phenomena
they face.

The difficulties of semantic and representational order, derived from the algebrization and
arithmetic calculation, in the case of Engineering, constitute serious limitations for
professional practice. These processes enhance learning without understanding, by
focusing students' efforts on obtaining solutions (as an end in itself) and ignoring cognitive
and socio-affective aspects, making calculus learning not contributing, or doing so. in a
very marginal way, to the development of the student studying Engineering

In a society that tends to digitalization and is characterized by the exponential growth of

information thanks to information and communication technologies, perceiving the process
of learning and teaching calculus from the algebrized perspective, reduced to the
arithmetic of calculators, decontextualized, formalized by the abstraction of mathematics,
must change, so a revaluation is necessary on what to do and how to make this discipline
can be learned, to become the instrument for which humanity created it: a mechanism to
solve environmental problems by reflecting on himself, in order to be able to optimize the
resources, increasingly scarce, that he has. This will only be possible when in the
curricular formulation of the Mathematics for Engineering courses the needs of this
discipline prevail over the criteria of the mathematicians.