PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

This study assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the designed Differential Calculus Instructional Lessons (DCIL) for teaching differential calculus from the perspective of teaching witnesses. Additionally, the study also focused on identifying suggested improvements from these teaching witnesses to refine DCIL. The research employed a design-based research approach, and this study focused only on outcomes from semi-structured interviews with two teaching witnesses who participated in separate teaching experiment cycles and their evaluation of the content validity of DCIL on the feedback form. Findings revealed that the strengths of the instructional lessons encompassed lesson effectiveness, interactive teaching strategies, and effective technology use. The results also highlighted specific challenges hindering students' understanding of differentiation topics, including content overload and time constraints, difficulties in understanding differentiation concepts, and limited feedback and interaction on the Desmos platform. The teaching witnesses recommended two major enhancements: improving student engagement and interaction and enhancing the Desmos platform for more effective teaching practices. The study exemplifies collaborative design-based research where the researcher engages course coordinators as teaching witnesses throughout two teaching cycles and contributes insights for refining the designed DCIL in teaching and learning differential calculus.

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