Memorisation of rules, such as Table 1, is contrary to good educational
practice (McInerney & McInerney, 1998).
In the teaching of calculus, the algebraic derivation of the derivative
(gradient function) enables the student to obtain an analytic global gradient
function. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, all current technology-
based approaches require the student to obtain the derivative
(gradient) at a single point by implementing differentiation using first principles.
The following sections show that the ability of spreadsheets to fit a
polynomial to a set of discrete (x,y) points, enables students to not just evaluate
a gradient at a single point, but at a whole family of points, thus
generating the analytic global gradient function of secants without doing any
algebraic manipulations. Students can then perform “numerical experiments”
to see the effect of taking the limit as the secants tend to tangents of
the original function. Finally, students can derive the rules for differentiation
through exploration and experimentation, again, without doing any algebraic
manipulations. This approach enables the class to focus on the concepts