The Calculus 1 & 2 Tutor - 2 DVD Set! - 8 Hour Course! - Learn By Examples!

This tutor is very effective at teaching you the very basics on a particular topic. It isn't extremely thorough, but if you're in class one day and have no idea what the teacher is talking about, you can refer to this and be like "of course, thats what he/she meant".

Even better, use this before your lecture and have a headstart on the days topic.

Calculus is one of those things that make you feel either as an insider or an outsider. If you know it, you feel like one of the happy few. If you don't (but know of its existence), you develop some kind of complex against it.

Now, this DVD is made for many different kinds of audiences, including (mainly) high-school students, and (secondarily) freshmen college students in science or economics. I will give my opinion as someone quite different. I am:
(a) a social scientist, and not a hard-science freak at all;
(b) already past 30 years old -- i.e. already quite rigid -- and without a lot of time to spend studying; and
(c) someone who had always been afraid to hold his nose and jump into the deep waters of calculus (and was therefore missing a lot of the cutting-edge work in his discipline, but sour-grape-ly convincing himself that there are different ways to arrive at the same insights, etc).

SO, IF THAT HAD WORKED FOR ME, IT MIGHT WORK FOR MOST PEOPLE.

Well ... this DVD DID WORK FOR ME!!! I immediately stopped thinking of calculus as one of the worst things that ever happened to me at high school... The clue is not in calculus itself, but in the way it is simplified and taught. Gibson is more than just a teacher: he is a coach, and a great communicator of his love for maths.

IN ADDITION, THIS PRODUCES RESULTS QUICKLY: I bought this when it came out, because I needed to urgently re-tool. I was an "informal" political scientist, and I wanted to gain quickly (a) the ability to read technical papers, and (b) some insight into formal models that I could use. In other words, I was not the kind of guy who either felt comfortable with calculus, or who would easily praise a DVD on such things. WITHIN TWO WEEKS OF USING IT AT A RATE OF ONE HOUR A DAY, I HAD ACHIEVED MY GOALS!!! Gone were the days when I'd see a chain rule or a partial derivative and I would immediately turn my head the other way. Welcome are the days when I see it and I want to know more about it!

Of course, watching or even learning this will not allow you to start writing and solving your own models. (For that, you also need to practice a little bit more, by the calc III dvd, and, of course, read some book on theories, both mathematical and of your own science.) BUT THE TRICK IS ELSEWHERE: WATCHING THIS WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO DO THESE EXTRA EXERCISES, AND IT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO READ THE THEORIES YOU'RE INTERESTED IN.

... TRULY, A GREAT PRODUCT!!!

PS. I can't wait until Jason Gibson publishes an equivalent series on statistics!

I bought this product thinking it would bring my calculus to a higher level. It didn't. The product covers the most basic examples which you can follow in your text if you are taking a class which would be the main reason you buy this DVD. This product was not helpful in doing the higher number problems at the end of the chapters let alone the problems on tests which require insight and creativity. This is the most basic of explanations of Calculus which most people should be able to follow in each chapter of their text.

I highly recommend this tutor's Algebra, Trig, Physics, and Calc DVD sets. The calculus set, like the others, gives one a no-nonsence step by step tutoring in Calculus 1. I just love the fact that there is no annoying music and condescending skits to side track you (unlike other DVD math products). All you get here is a white board and a guy churning away example after example that really brings home the point.

One caveat. This set does not include Calc 2 - at least not the Calc 2 that I took back in 1972.

Excellent product.

I bought this having high expectations after reading other's comments about this dvd. However, this DVD is so basic that I do not believe it would help the average user in their Calculus class much. Although the instructor knows his stuff, his explanations are so basic and he gives no details into what you are doing that it leaves the students confused and lost. The instructor also doesn't seem confident when solving problems so that you may be discourage from listening further. Again, I believe this is a good basic, and I mean very basic review for calculus, if you are serious about learning the concepts there are much better (and often cheaper) books out there. After being disappointed with the purchase of this DVD, I bought "HOW TO ACE CALCULUS: The Streetwise Guide" from Colin Adams, and found it to have much more usefulness. It covers much more of the concepts that you will run in your calculus classes, is much clearer and the book is written so that it is easy to follow and it cost much less than half the price of this DVD. And lastly, after having bought this DVD and reviewing all 8 hrs of the instruction twice, I went back to the reviews other's had written for this DVD and found that although it has a lot of 5 stars rating, most of the people doing those ratings had only rated this product. Is it because somebody is trying to inflate this DVD's ratings? I guess I'll never really know but just trying to warn people to be cautious. Thanks, and good luck in Calculus.