The Emphasis on Generalization Strategies in Teaching Integral: Calculus Lesson Plans

Although integral is one of the important concepts in mathematics, most students have problems learning it. A well-designed lesson plan consisting generalization and its related activities can play an important role to overcome the students’ difficulties in the learning process. In this study, generalization means going from particular to something general by looking at common things and expanding their domains of validity. The main goal of this study is to investigate the rate of using generalization by mathematics instructors in teaching of integral concepts based on lesson plans. Thus, the instructors were interviewed on what generalization means to them and to find the reasons of emphasis on generalization or lack of it in their lesson plans. Findings revealed that most instructors did not emphasise the teaching of generalization in their lesson plans. Although most of the instructors expressed that generalization can be used to extend the theorems, the interview clarified that majority of the instructors did not know about the important applications of generalization in the teaching of integral. The results demonstrated that instructors have oppressed generalization in the integral teaching process.