Level 3 Precalculus

L3 Pre-Calculus Course Expectaions

Mr. Burke: cburke@hinghamschools.org

Website: https://sites.google.com/a/hinghamschools.org/burkemath/home

Welcome to your Precalculus course. This is an average paced course in which we will cover approximately eight chapters of the textbook. You should expect an average of 30 minutes of homework daily, and extra help is available every day after school OR BEFORE

SCHOOL BY APPOINTMENT (by telling me the previous day or by emailing me by 9PM the night before!). Students who are successful in this course will go on to Analysis (level 3), Calculus(level 2), or even AP Statistics (level 1) next year.

Feel free to contact me by email (cburke@hinghamschools.org), which I check several times daily.

I will use the email addresses provided to the school (as they appear in X2) for students/parents to send general course reminders by email, generally twice per quarter.

IN CLASS You will need the following every day:

-covered textbook (may have limited class copies available but not one per student)

-math notebook -positive attitude -willingness to work with others

-graphing calculator** (TI-83/84 series recommended--NEEDED BY 2nd week of classes)

**school sells for $112 (cheaper on sale in some stores)...if there is a financial hardship, Mr. Jewett has calculators that can be loaned out

GRADING Based on a half-period quiz grade (100 pts.); quizzes may be unannounced.

Mini-quizzes (sometimes unannounced, no more than 15 minutes) are worth up to 50 pts. each.

Tests will count as 2 quiz grades (200 pts.) and will be announced at least one week in advance.

Projects will be weighted according to difficulty (ranging from ½ to 2 quizzes).

Homework for the entire quarter will count as approximately two quiz grades.

Individual homework assignments (checked daily, sometimes collected) will be accepted for half-credit if shown within 1 day of original due date, but usually no credit after that.

Graded work is kept in individual folders that are kept in the classroom at all times.

Students will have the same number of days absent to make up homework, and twice the number of days absent to make up a quiz or test (so 1 day absent means homework is made up the next day, and missed quiz/test is made up within 2 days), and may be completed before school (by appointment), after school or during a study.Homework without work shown will generally receive half-credit. Students are expected to self-correct homework ON A DAILY BASIS and to ask homework-related questions in a timely manner, usually before the start of the next lesson. Extra help is both encouraged and expected for students who need it.

Homework, participation, and attitude will all be used to reconcile borderline quarter averages (each quarter is worth 20% of final overall grade).There will be a midyear exam and a final exam (each worth 10% of final overall grade).

L3 Pre-Calculus Course Outline (subject to change)

Quarter 1 Trigonometric Functions, Analytic Trigonometry (Ch. 6, 7)

Quarter 2 Trigonometry Applications, Polar Coordinates and Vectors (Ch. 8, 9, 10)

Quarter 3 Systems of Equations and Inequalities, Polynomial and Rational Functions (Ch. 11, 4)

Quarter 4 Exponential and Logarithmic Functions, Binomial Theorem/Conic Sections/Limits (Ch. 5, 12, 10, 14)

Helpful Links:

ONLINE (pdf) VERSION OF TEXTBOOK: Textbook COPY

4 VIDEO LINKS FOR CHAPTER 9 Material: #1 #2 #3 #4

Conic Sections (Chapters 1 & 10) INTRODUCTION Video

Definitions:

Pre-Calculus - In mathematics education, precalculus is a course with college-level algebra and trigonometry that is designed to prepare students for the study of calculus. Schools often distinguish between algebra and trigonometry as two separate parts of the coursework.[1] Precalculus prepares students for calculus somewhat differently from the way that pre-algebra prepares students for algebra. While pre-algebra often has extensive coverage of basic algebraic concepts, precalculus courses might see only small amounts of calculus concepts, if at all, and often involves covering algebraic topics that might not have been given attention in earlier algebra courses. Some precalculus courses might differ with others in terms of content. For example, an honors level course might spend more time on conic sections, Euclidean vectors, and other topics needed for calculus, used in fields such as medicine or engineering. A college preparatory class might focus on topics used in business related careers, such as matrices, or power functions