|
- Instead of drawing graphs on a whiteboard or a chalkboard, use
Newt to plot curves or surfaces, and project the results onto
a wall or screen. It's quicker, neater, and easy for your
students to reproduce the results in the computer labs.
- You can also use the animation features of the Slopes and
differentiation or Integration modules, for example, to assist
in students' visualisation of the procedures. The Dynamical
systems module will assist your students in plotting complex
dynamical systems which are tricky to plot by hand.
- Let your students use Newt to check themselves when they are
studying for exams. If they're plotting graphs which are difficult
to immediately visualise, they can use Newt as a guideline to
validate their answers.
- Science teachers can use Newt to demonstrate the idea of
beats in waves. Try plotting something like 3sinx+cos10x.
- Geography teachers can use Newt to illustrate contours. Try plotting
e^-2(xx+yy) (a small hill, if you like) and then use the Contour
Plot function to plot contours from 0 to 1 in steps of 0.2.
- Biology teachers can demonstrate the predator-prey relationship. In
the 2D Dynamical Systems module, set dx/dt to x-xy and
set dy/dt to -y+xy. Then plot curves using the Twin Graphs
option, to see how the two populations interact.
|
|
- Use Newt's printing features to print out clear and precise
graphs for test and exam questions. You can label and caption
these graphs easily using Newt's special features.
- Let your students read up on the methods used by Newt to
approximate slopes and solutions to differential equations,
and then try out the methods themselves using Newt. When they
understand the principles behind the methods, they can start
to do the calculations themselves.
- Use the "Hidden Functions" to test your students interactively.
Hidden functions are a set of fuctions whose function definitions
you can hide from your students, enabling you to test their
ability to identify functions from their features and intercepts.
- Newt will also assist your students in becoming comfortable using
computers if they haven't used them much before, and the simple
and configurable interface will help them to develop confidence
using a windowing operating system.
|