Mr. Garcia evaluated his performance teaching Calculus and Computer Science. He believes he achieved his primary goal of helping students communicate mathematical reasoning effectively. Through cooperative activities like group review sessions and take-home exams, his Calculus BC class learned to communicate fluently in mathematics. However, limitations on lab time prevented the class from fully utilizing Mathematica software and self-paced notebooks to further explore applications of Calculus concepts.

1. To: Jeffrey L. Hollman, Principal Baldwin SHS
From: A. Jorge Garca, Teacher of Calculus and Comp Sci
Date: 2/08/99
Re: Self­Evaluation
My Primary goal was to help students effectively and fluently
communicate mathematical reasoning. I believe that I have attained this
goal as shown below.
A student learns a topic best when required to teach it to another
person. We incorporated several cooperative activities (group review
sessions, team tests, study buddies) and extended tasks (take home exams,
board work) in order to reinforce this experience. As a result, my Calculus
BC class learned to communicate fluently in mathematics as a language.
They instructed each other in the cooperative activities and explained their
results to me via extended tasks. We emphasized the importance of making
mathematical arguments graphically, numerically, analytically and verbally.
We also tried to learn to use a Computer Algebra System (CAS) to write
mathematical reports. It was very difficult to include lab time, however.
With the demands of the AP Calculus BC curriculum, we were only able to do
lab work one or two periods a month. What little we did was very beneficial.
If we could have had an additional lab period every other day as in science
classes, we would have been able to exploit the full potential of Mathematica,
our CAS, as an educational tool to explore many more applications of The
Calculus. In addition, we were unable to start the self­paced notebooks
downloaded from the University of Chicago.
Professional Self­Evaluation