Calculus and physics: Challenges at the interface

After three years of teaching an integrated calculus and physics course, a number of observations on student learning have been made which suggest how teachers of the two subjects might better support and take advantage of the efforts of each other to improve the educational experience for the students. Physics teachers, for example, may well overestimate the depth of understanding their students have of the concepts of calculus, while underestimating their computational skills. Calculus teachers, on the other hand may be unaware of what their students actually need to know to succeed in physics and other quantitative disciplines. In the following, several of the areas of mismatch between calculus and physics will be discussed, as evidenced by student performance in our course, and recommendations will be made as to how the physics teacher might better take advantage of the knowledge of calculus students actually have while striving to improve the compatability of the two subjects.