Math 1316: Material for Instructors (Also see my materials for students)

I taught trig for the first time in about 5 years in 2004 and found that my students seemed to find it fairly easy to do the homework, but didn't do well on the tests. We discussed it quite a bit, and I did some re-testing, but in that first semester, nothing seemed to work out very well. So I spent about a week during my Christmas break restructuring the entire course in order to make it better. I have taught it twice now in this mode, and it has worked much better than that first semester. I invite you to look at materials and use as many of them as you'd like. Feel free to modify them to suit yourself. (For each document, there are two links. The main one is to a PDF document, and the second one - the . - is to a Word document. So use that second one to get an editable file.)

For a quick overview to my methods, read the HW1 assignment. (Follow the link at the top of this page and find it from there.)

Then look at the main page and notice which topics I bring into the first three chapters via supplements. Look at each supplement, particularly the one on Algebra with Trig Functions.

The third important component is having one retest that covers through Section 5.2. That deals with the problem of students needing to drop a test grade because of missing it, or a bad grade. And it gets them very focused on learning 5.1 and 5.2 well, which seems crucial to me in developing their skills.

Also, look at my handout of trig identities at the bottom of the page. I am not a big believer in memorizing trig identities, but instead in understanding them by having a good feeling for how you can prove each from some previous ones. You'll see that my handout of trig identities emphasizes that. Also, of course, they are required to memorize some of them, and I give them a handout with blanks for those. (That handout is provided here too.) The blanks are for the identities themselves, but the summaries of how to prove them are included on the handout with the blanks. I have found that this encourages the students to think in terms of understanding those proofs and relationships instead of just mnemonic devices or whatever to memorize things.

I hope you find some of this useful.

Mary