Calculating a Total Differential

Highlights of the activity

1. This small group activity is designed to give students a chance to exercise their newly learned skills in taking total differentials of multi-variable functions.
2. Students use their knowledge from the preceding lecture to find the total differentials of given functions.
3. The whole class discussion focuses on good habits to have while calculating total differentials of complicated functions.

Reasons to spend class time on the activity

This activity offers a first-hand opportunity for students to use a chain rule diagram to find an expression for a total differential. This small group exercise works well following the “Chain Rule Diagram” activity.

: VARIABLES IN PICTURE DO NOT MATCH THOSE SPECIFIED IN INSTRUCTOR'S GUIDE

Reflections

• Reflections from the original implementation.

• Reflections from "official" adapters/adopters.

• Reflections from the general public.

Instructor's Guide

• Wiki version