As a Teaching Assistant for Math 134:  Calculus for the Social Sciences, I struggle to find ways to motivate my students to exceed the minimum requirements for this course.  I am not the principal instructor for this course, and hence I do not decide what homework is assigned, which sections will be covered, or what material students should be tested on.  So many students do what the lecturer assigns, and no more.  This limits them to doing between four and seven homework problems a week.  As someone who has been through calculus, I firmly believe that this is not nearly enough to solidify the concepts in this course.  Students need to practice the rules presented in this course on a regular basis to be successful throughout the semester.  This led me to ask myself:  What can I do to encourage my students to go beyond the required work to improve their understanding of derivatives?

    Another issue I face as a TA for this course is the difficulty in connecting to my students individually during class sessions.  Each section I teach has approximately 40 students in it.  To try and reach students on a personal level when there are that many of them is a daunting task.  The result is that it is nearly impossible to pick up on the misconceptions a student may have about a particular topic.  Easley and Zwoyer address this issue in Teaching By Listening -- Toward a New Day in Math Classes.  They state, "Complaints from teachers about what their pupils forget, or should have learned but didn't in previous courses, can be reinterpreted in light of the hypothesis that much more misconception develops in classes than is recognized by the teacher (or students)...Sooner or later though, they experience a rude shock."  I experience this throughout the entire semester of calculus.  The rules of derivatives, which I would like to be in each student's instant recall, fall out of their memory almost as soon as the test ends.  Then we approach the topic of integrals and antiderivatives.  Students need to know the rules of derivatives in order to master integrals, but at this point of the semester, those rules are long gone.  The result is that "the teacher and the student meet frustration".  Easley and Zwoyer state that one way to attack this problem is to have teachers truly listen to their students.  However, in order to do so, teachers must sacrifice many of the other goals they might have for any given class period.  This approach was taken by one teacher who would focus on just one student at a time for a few minutes each period, while the rest of the class did whatever they wanted.  It was her way of listening to each student and helping them learn.

    I struggle each day to find ways to eliminate the misconceptions of my students, especially the ones who don't speak up in class.  The one time I can best identify students misconceptions is during office hours.  In my opinion, my office hours are the most productive time that any of my students can spend learning calculus.  And it is the personal setting that makes this possible.  Students are forced to articulate their problems with calculus, and I can watch them as they progress through a problem step by step.  The interaction in office hours is wonderful for those students who take advantage of them.  But what about the students who, for whatever reason, don't attend office hours, but are obviously struggling.  What can I do for them?  Is there a  way I can help them, without  having that direct personal connection?

    My answer to these questions was to create a web site where students could review the concepts and rules of derivatives, the main focus of this semester course.  This site would be a place where students could go, outside of class, to supplement their understanding of derivatives.  But I didn't just want to make a site which contained information that I thought was important.  After all, what I may think my students struggle with may be entirely different from their actual struggles.  So I wanted to include the needs of my students in this page.  My concern with this was that students' contributions would have to be totally voluntary.  And so another question arose:  If given the opportunity, would students help create a resource that would ideally benefit the majority of students in this course?

    In an attempt to answer this question and create a beneficial resource for my students, I developed a series of three surveys.  The process and site are still in development, and are being updated to better meet the needs of my students.