@Gaaah Why is it an issue to find more than two lecturers capable of teaching calculus? And since when has increasing class sizes been an appropriate way to correct deficient teaching?

Aaron, I respect that you’re attempting to improve an important course, but I don’t agree that that’s the way.

It would be better to have more access to teachers, so yes, having professors available for recitation would help, but weren’t those the professors you were removing from the classroom because they weren’t effective communicators in the first place?

Calculus should not be a difficult subject to teach – thousands of high schools do it effectively. There is no reason Columbia cannot find an appropriate number of professors (or students of the university) to teach Calculus 1. Ballooning class sizes are not the answer – clearer instruction in reasonable class sizes from all teachers (not to complain about my teacher – Professor Alper was one of the better lecturers I have had at Columbia) is the appropriate solution.

I believe there are actually two issues here. The first is the overarching question of how can it be taught most effectively. Ideally, everyone learns all of the material expected of someone who has taken a Calc 1 class. This leads to an ideological dispute; namely, should a class, in which every student can learn all of the relevant material perfectly be curved. If you don’t think it should be, then you’ve solved the issue once every student enrolled in Calc 1 can pass a course-wide test of appropriate difficulty. If, however, you think the exceptional students should have opportunities to differentiate themselves from the rest of the class, then you return to the problem of having students complain that some problems are more difficult than the material that was presented in class.