This course is designed to be used as part one of a three-part calculus sequence:
- Calculus 1 covers functions, limits, derivatives, and integration.
- Calculus 2 covers integration, differential equations, sequences and series, and parametric equations and polar coordinates.
- Calculus 3 covers parametric equations and polar coordinates, vectors, functions of several variables, multiple integration, and second-order differential equations.
The primary text for this course is Calculus Volume 1 from OpenStax. Lumen has curated, designed, and built additional resources to enhance both the teaching and learning experience. Each module begins with a prerequisite material review section, in which critical skills from Precalculus and College Algebra are revisited. Additionally, just-in-time review of essential math concepts appear throughout the text to help those students who need further learning support. The course includes embedded algorithmically generated practice questions, worked-example videos, and a complete set of outcome aligned online assessments in OHM. For even more practice opportunities, there are problem sets for each section and an activity for each module. Keeping student engagement in mind, we have created a full suite of thought-provoking assignments: discussion prompts, Desmos interactives, application based assignments (in relation to economics, computer science, biology, physics, and engineering), flipped classroom options, and a capstone project. Faculty can adapt and use these materials in a variety of ways depending on their class structure and institutional requirements. All content is constructed around the goal of helping students master the learning outcomes for this course.
Important note: Calculus 1 is designed to accommodate both Early and Late Transcendental approaches to calculus. Exponential and logarithmic functions are introduced informally in Module 1 and presented in more rigorous terms in Module 6. Differentiation and integration of these functions is covered in Modules 3–5 for instructors who want to include them with other types of functions. These discussions, however, are in separate sections that can be skipped for instructors who prefer to wait until the integral definitions are given before teaching the calculus derivations of exponentials and logarithms.
Course Improvements
We believe in making continuous improvements to our courses in order to enhance and facilitate student learning. This newest version of the course includes data-driven improvements to assessment questions and text content in order to better illustrate, clarify, and evaluate concepts.
Contributors
This course was developed by Lumen Learning with significant contributions by:
Primary Content Authors
Sidney Tate, Ensign College
Daniel Breuer, Mitchell Community College
Ryan Melton, Kilgore College
Katie Christensen, Kennesaw State University
Dr. Lydia Maynard, Shenandoah University
Matthew Simmons, Florida State College at Jacksonville
Dr. Jackie Johnston, Northeast Texas Community College
Ariel Cintrón-Arias, Contributor
William Lindsey, Contributor
Kaiwen Amrein, Portland Community College
About Lumen
Lumen Learning courseware is based on open educational resources (OER). When we can find well designed, effective OER that are appropriately licensed, we use them in our courseware. When we can’t find pre-existing OER, we create original content and license it as OER (under a Creative Commons Attribution license).
Lumen’s authoring process doesn’t end when our courseware is released. Our choice to adopt open educational resources means that we have the copyright permissions necessary to engage in continuous improvement of our learning content. Consequently, our courses are continually being revised and updated. Errata reported for our courseware are fixed in a matter of days, as opposed to the traditional model in which errors persist until the next “edition” is printed (often a year or more). Students and faculty can suggest improvements to our courses directly from within the courseware as they use it. And we conduct regular analyses to determine where students are struggling the most in our courseware, and make improvements that specifically target these areas.
Given our unique approach, our list of authors and other contributors may look different than the lists you are used to seeing. We provide both a list of the primary content authors (the people involved in the initial creation of the course) and a list of everyone who has contributed suggestions and other improvements to the course since it was first released. We invite you to join us as we create courseware that supports student learning more effectively each semester.
If you’d like to connect with us to learn more about adopting this course, please Contact Us.
You can also make an appointment for OER Office Hours to connect virtually with a live Lumen expert about any question you may have.
