Alumnus Hopkins Brings Fresh Material To Tried-And-True Text
Published: April 13, 2021
Kevin Hopkins 83, mathematics professor and chair of the math department at Southwest Baptist University, has contributed to the newly released Thomas Calculus: Early Transcendentals 14th Edition (Pearson, 2017).
Hopkins collaborated with a team to develop interactive figures that appear in MyLab, an online course that supplements the time-tested Thomas text. Interactive figures help students visualize concepts like motion and change.
Mathematics is not a spectator sport, Hopkins observed in an essay he wrote for a festschrift honoring his one-time philosophy and religion professor at GC, Frank H. Thompson. We have to get into the problems and try them.
Interactive figures invite students "into" engaged problem-solving. Working with the figures helps them visualize difficult concepts and internalize the mathematical connections.
GC mathematics instructors have used the Thomas text in the past. The book has some serious longevity, says George Peters, mathematics department chair and associate professor. Peters father, Professor Emeritus of Math Galen Peters, used Thomas Calculus in the early 60s.
Read more: Hopkins Contributes to Calculus Text
Photos courtesy of Southwest Baptist University
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