College Algebra-Period 6 (Period 6)

Welcome to College Algebra! Think about that course name: do not expect this class to be just like your previous high school math courses. In college you are embarking on a career. Not only are you there to prepare for a job in the future, but making your role as a college student your job at that moment. To perform well in this course, you need to make college your priority and think like a college student. Here you will be treated as an adult who has selected this class as a job to prepare you for a successful college career. As with any job, you will be required to perform at a high level in order to keep it. This will include attendance and quality of work. You wouldn’t walk into your boss's office on the first day and say “Hey! I'm so and so, and I'm going to enjoy working here. However, I need to let you know up front that I'll be missing many of my work days, I will complete many of my duties late and my overall job effort will be average or below.” If you did, you’d probably be back in the unemployment line. College is not simply taking a few courses to get a diploma. College is not a trade school where you will take courses that only pertain to the career that you wish to pursue. College is an experience that is designed to teach you to think, to broaden your understanding of the world and to give you the skills to grow and improve yourself for the rest of your life. You need to leave your preconceptions of this class and yourself behind. Think of this class as, perhaps, your first college course. Through your experience in this class, you can grow beyond who you have been and who you have limited yourself to be...just as in college. Your growth and your success in this class will depend less upon your natural gifts or talents and more upon your willingness to change, grow, apply and, above all, work…just as in college. Do your best! Rise to the challenge! Live and learn…just as in college! This year’s College Algebra course is partially based on Common Core State Standards – Mathematics (CCSS-M) Appendix A: Designing High School Mathematics Courses on the Common Core State Standards (2011). However, it is modified in scope and sequence to accommodate the year’s time constraints and incoming students’s prior knowledge. Further- more, College Algebra reviews and extends students’s mathematical experiences from sophomore and junior years in order to prepare them to perform successfully on college math placement tests so that remedial mathematics courses will prove unnecessary. Big Ideas (listed below) are sequenced in a way that we believe best develops and connects the mathematical content of the CCSS-M with typical college expectations of incoming freshmen’s prior mathematical knowledge and skills. Some standards may be revisited several times while addressing a particular topic, while others may be only partially ad- dressed, depending on the Big Idea’s mathematical focus. Throughout College Algebra, students should continue to develop proficiency in the Common Core’s Standards for Mathematical Practice (listed below). The Mathematical Practices will be integrated into instruction where appropriate. When the Mathematical Practices are taught alongside the addressed content standards, students will be more likely to achieve the depth of conceptual understanding and procedural fluency that are expected by the CCSS-M. The CCSS-M Standards for Mathematical Practice 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments & critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. College Algebra’s Big Ideas 1. Linear Relations and Functions 2. Equations and Inequalities 3. Systems of Equations and Matrices 4. Functions and Graphs 5. Polynomial and Rational Functions 6. Trigonometric Functions 7. Logarithmic Functions 8. Exponential Functions 9. Vectors 10. Polar Coordinates and Complex Numbers 11. Conics 12. Sequences and Series 13. Probability and Statistics This course will emphasize student preparation, critical thinking and problem solving. To do well in the course, you must read the assignment ahead of time and prepare questions, do problems from the text and prepare for assessment by reviewing those problems worked in class and at home. Over the course of the semester, you should devote about two hours of outside work for each hour in class. College Algebra demands your time and effort! First, study the examples worked in class as well as those in the textbook, then practice, practice, practice. And then practice some more! This course, as many other courses, will emphasize the written communication of ideas to others. In this course, you will be communicating mathematical ideas. Just as it is important in an English course to use the proper format in your essays and term papers, it is important to use proper format when communicating mathematical ideas. You will learn how to write mathematics so that it can be understood by others. You should care- fully study how mathematics is written in class as well as how it is written in the textbook. You should pattern your writing after these sources. Course Objectives Students will demonstrate a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of college-level mathematics. Upon completion of College Algebra, students should, at a bare minimum, have an understanding and be able to demonstrate their knowledge of: 1. Solving linear, quadratic, rational, radical, and absolute value equations and their applications. 2. Solving linear, quadratic, rational, radical, and absolute value inequalities and their applications. 3. The rectangular coordinate system and graphing equations in two variables. 4. Finding equations of, and graphing, lines and circles and their applications. 5. Fundamental concepts of functions, including composition of functions and inverse functions, and their application as mathematical models. 6. Fundamental properties of polynomials, the factor and remainder theorems and the number of real zeros of a polynomial. 7. Direct and inverse variation and applications. 8. Solving systems of linear equations in two or three variables and applications. 9. The properties of exponential and logarithmic functions and their application to compound interest. 10. Solving exponential and logarithmic equations. 11. The trigonometric functions. 12. Solving right and other triangles using trigonometric functions as well as the laws of sines and cosines.