Improvement of student's mathematical communication ability using M-APOS approach

Calculus course is a much needed material in the development of science and technology. Calculus is the important for learning the next many topic. Students have difficulties in understanding the calculus.The lecturers often explain subject matter by giving examples of problems and exercises,so the concepts are less meaningful. Students only learn to solve problems mechanically. Considering those problems, one way that can be used to overcome the problem is to design a learning tools. The designed teaching materials should be able to summarize the existing concepts so that students are easily understood the concept. Lecturer can use M-APOS modification approach M-APOS (Modification-action - process - object – schema). The purpose of this study was to produce M-APOS based calculus lecturing tool that valid, practical and effective to improve students'mathematical communication ability. This research is a development research. The result of this research show that the learning tools of calculus based on M-APOS aprroach are valid both in terms of content and construct. The developed M-APOS based calculus learning tools have met the practical criteria both from the aspect of implementation, ease and required time. Yet, the developed M-APOS based calculus learning tools have not been effective in improving students'mathematical communication ability.