Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Welcome to math 111.  The goal of my teaching is active learning. One of my objectives in teaching is to facilitate learning by helping students to gain the necessary skills to take control of and become active participants in their own learning.  Our class will contain a lab component where students work together with other students to engage with the material and develop a deeper understanding of the material.  The book for this class is a free OER and we will discuss how to access it during class.

Class:  This class will meet remotely twice a week from 8:30 – 11:20 am in Zoom on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Classes will include some lecture, practice quizzes, practice ALEKS problems, and group lab work using break-out sessions in zoom.  Links to the classes are posted on Desire to Learn under the Online Rooms tab.  The synchronous virtual class meetings will provide an opportunity to practice and discuss the topics with both the instructor and their classmates in both the main session and in breakout rooms. The goal of the virtual class activities is to better understand the concepts while working through fun and engaging activities with classmates. Students who are absent will need to watch the class video and make up the group lab work that we complete during the class.

Virtually Proctored Exams: Proctored exams are one of many assessment tools used in MTH to assess student learning.  The exams in this class will be proctored virtually in Zoom with me, your instructor during our regularly scheduled meeting times.

Review the Student Guide to Virtually Proctored Exams in Zoom for important information and requirements. Please make every concerted effort to attend the scheduled virtually proctored exams. If you do not meet the requirements for virtually proctored exams, prefer to take your exams in-person, and/or have an unavoidable scheduling conflict, please contact me as soon as possible to discuss alternative arrangements. With adequate notice, alternative testing arrangements can be made for virtual or in-person proctoring at a testing center. Scheduling appointments with a testing center is the responsibility of the student, as well as paying any associated fees with using a non-PCC testing center.

If you have accommodations through Accessible Ed & Disability Resources at PCC, please contact me so we can discuss your specific accommodations and how I can best support you.

If you have any questions or concerns about virtually proctored exams, please feel free to contact me.

ALEKS:  This class will use the ALEKS homework system. The program learns the prerequisite topics that you are weak on and gives you additional practice and instruction before starting the week’s homework. I will give you many more details once the term starts. You will need to purchase the program after a two-week trial period for about $60. Some more details can be found by clicking the link: https://spaces.pcc.edu/display/MS/ALEKS+Information

Calculator: A physical graphing calculator is not required in this class. Instead, online graphing calculators (such as Desmos and/or GeoGebra) will be used in technology labs throughout the term and on some quizzes and exams.

Scanner Hardware or Scanner Software: A scanner is not required, but there will be times when you'll want to upload your hand-written work. This can be easily done using either a scanner (hardware) or using a smartphone or tablet with a free scanner application (software) such as Adobe Scan, ScanBot, GeniusScan, etc.

PDF Creator: All electronic documents submitted in this class are required to be in pdf format. If you have Microsoft Word, you can create a pdf using "Save As". Otherwise, you may need a PDF Creator, such as CutePDF. These are free and easy to use.

OER (Book) OpenStax

https://openstax.org/books/algebra-and-trigonometry-2e/pages/3-introduction-to-functions