<p>My daughter has run out of math classes at her school. We thought she could do multi-variable calculus at a local college, but it would conflict with classes she really wants in her school. So, I have been exploring on-line options. I started out thinking EPGY and CTY are a little expensive, but I haven't found anything for less.</p>
<p>How does one chose (besides cost)? Which gives clearest instruction and best support?</p>
<p>CTY-- like that you can start a second class if finish one, but pricey to extend.</p>
<p>MIT Open Course Ware-- no credit, no support but free and a possible way to keep brain in shape until take calc 3 as a freshman.</p>
<p>EPGY-- daughter seems to lean this way, maybe because it is Stanford</p>
<p>Wisconsin-- price competitive with CTY and EPGY. I think a year to complete. Does the quality of UWisc math program carry over to its distance education offerings?</p>
<p>Still to investigate-- LSU, UT, UIUC.</p>
<p>Comments on any of the above would be much-appreciated.</p>
<p>I read a thread from 3 years ago about calculus on-line, and Thinkwell came up. It looks like a great option, but only through calculus 2. Is there something similar for multivariable calculus?</p>
<p>Again, I appreciate any insight you might have.</p>
<p>I did multivariable through UIUC at my high school. It was difficult for me, although I ended up with a good grade (A-). The way we had it set up, we worked in partners, and we had a teacher there to "mentor" us. I don't know that I could have done done it by myself, although it's hard to say for sure. I had issues with the format--the class is taught solely through Mathematica software, and being thrown into it with no prior experience was painful. In the course description, we were specifically told that we did not need to know any sort of code to do the course, and while that was technically true, you still had to be able to comprehend the code and understand what it was doing to do the work. </p>
<p>Our class was set up like this: during class time, we worked in pairs (chosen by the teacher) on the computer on problem sets. Our homework was a separate set of problem sets (called literacy sheets) that we did by hand, but was in the same format as the Mathematica work (was printed off of the program). All but my most gifted classmates found collaboration necessary to solve the harder problems on these sheets. We would then have a written quiz at the end of every unit, and followed a typical two tests/one final pattern. The bulk of my learning for the course came from completing and studying the literacy sheets. Once I figured this out, I performed consistently well on the quizzes and tests. In our case, the quizzes were graded by our "mentor" and the tests were sent to a professor at UIUC and graded by her. UIUC has a grading policy that stipulates that a student cannot receive a grade in a course that is more than one letter grade higher than his/her exam grade (although it would be unusual for a student to run into problems with this policy). </p>
<p>Anyway, I know what I did is not exactly the same as what your daughter will be doing, but I thought you might find it helpful. From observing my classmates, it seemed to me that students with computer science/coding background were more able to jump into the class without additional help. The rest of us floundered for awhile with the unfamiliarity of the format. I was admittedly one of the worst at doing the computer work and never did become comfortable with it (although with a good partner I did much better--there are blessings and curses associated with working in pairs), but I was still able to get a good grade in the class. It is a little hard for me to say if doing it alone would have been harder or easier, because while collaboration is obviously helpful, I think my classmates and I helped each other to foster bad work habits because we were able to rely on each other to hack through the problem sets. Also, there was a competitive aspect in that the pairs were often racing each other to finish first (it was a class of 19 guys and only 3 girls...). This also did not foster good study habits. So a student working alone might actually have an advantage. </p>
<p>Oh, and we completed the higher credit version of the class (4 credit hours instead of 3, I <em>believe</em>) because we spread it out over the whole year. We also almost always had left over time at the end of each unit, so it was not stressful from a time crunch standpoint. I chose not to bother with getting college credit/acknowledgment for the class due to my school's stringent policies about that sort of thing, but I have no reason to believe that the class did not cover everything that it ought to. </p>
<p>My son took the UIUC Vector Calculus course and it went quite well. He's had programming experience and he had used Mathematica in an abstract algebra-based discrete structures course in the past. The exams were proctored by a librarian at the local library. He was able to get reasonable turnaround from UIUC tutors (they use students for tutors) using email.</p>
<p>He followed it up with their higher Linear Algebra course and just unofficially finished the differential equations course last week. He just worked through the courseware for the differential equations course - there was no credit.</p>
<p>We have a lot of calculus books at home that he could use for reference.</p>
<p>Thanks. Are you from Illinois? I'm surprised that the responses so far are 100% Illinois.</p>
<p>My daughter had a little exposure to Mathematica during a camp. She would still have a learning curve.
Another program I've seen mentioned a couple times is something like Maple. Is that an alternative to Mathematica? I really (and obviously) don't know what these programs do.</p>
<p>If I can generalize from the two responders-- one can learn from the online programs. It takes some work, both in terms of material and logistics, but is do-able.</p>
<p>I haven't seen Maple but I believe that it is similar. These programs are computer algebra systems and they provide a lot of features that can provide or augment learning. They can display graphics and ideas that would be difficult to convey in a traditional classroom or typical textbook. We're in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>I used Maple years ago, and I use Mathematica regularly now. (I have even published a paper in the Mathematica Journal!) Maple is like Mathematica in that both are capable of symbolic mathematics (i.e., you can direct them to expand (x+y)<strong>2, and they will spit out x</strong>2+2xy+y**2, in contrast to regular programming languages, which require that values be assigned to each variable before any calculations can take place). Mathematica is also capable of numerical calculations to arbitrary precision. Many years ago, when I had a very complicated problem to solve symbolically, I thought of writing my own program to do it, and quickly gave up. Later I learned of Mathematica and Maple and another similar program whose name I've forgotten. Mathematica has evolved tremendously since those days, and I can see that learning math using its environment would be useful. But it takes some time and effort to become familiar with it, and I can't imagine taking a course that is based on it without knowing how to use it.</p>
<p>I only know these places for multivariable calculus:</p>
<p>Havard extension (idk if it is online or not. Is it online?)
Stanford EPGY (many people say its hard)
UIUC (I live in LA)
UCLA (I live in LA. Probably not online)
CTY (i don't think CTY offers multivariable calculus)</p>
<p>D studied math through EPGY program in 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th grade. Took AP Calc at high school (excellent program). Then studied Multivariable through EPGY. D learned math - and learned how to teach herself (although we could help). Excellent - not hard - one must keep up with assignments and use the tutors.</p>
<p>OP - Wonderful advice above. (D did EPGY calculus as 8th Grader -- hard, but good.) It's commendable that you're looking for the "best" option for your D. But any course will provide her valuable background for when she gets to college and takes the course "for real." JMHO.</p>
<p>JHU CTY does offer multivariable calculus. My S ('10) may take it next year, after we have experience with the CTY linear algebra class he's taking this year.</p>
<p>The UIUC courses are the real university courses. I'm not familiar with the other calc courses so I can't comment on those. UIUC uses the Mathematica courseware from MathEverywhere. The courseware is $45 and you can just buy it and use it but you won't have someone to correct your homework and exams and provide help in answering questions.</p>
<p>The MathEverywhere materials contain far more material than can be covered in a normal semester class - similar to course textbooks. Suffolk University also offers the same course but the charge about double the price - they provide more hand-holding for their courses.</p>
<p>There are old copies of the software on the web at the UIUC site but you need Mathematica to read the software.</p>
<p>One can also find course video lectures for Multivariable Calculus now. MIT, Berkeley and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has these available for free download.</p>
<p>I am doing Multivariable calculus as a high school sophomore. There are 5 sophomores at my school in Illinois doing this. (I won’t mention the name for privacy). We took the AP BC exam this year and the AB AP and Stats AP exams last year. Next year, I think we will do Independent Study- Perhaps Linear Algebra, Discrete Math.</p>