Trigonometry

Course Syllabus, Fall, 1997

Prerequisite: College Algebra MA 1513

Syllabus Contents

[graph.gif] Assignments
Attendance Policy
Course Description from Catalog
Course Goals
Course/Instructor Information
Instructor's Words to the Wise
Materials to be purchased by the student
Methods of Assessing Student Achievement




Instructor: James S. Meyer, Ph.D.

Study:      409 Janeway Academic Center

Telephone: (405)-878-5196

Fax:       (405)-878-5198

e:mail to jimmeyer@ionet.net

U.S. Mail to

J. S. Meyer

Faculty Mailstop, Box 389

St. Gregory's University

1900 W. MacArthur Drive

Shawnee, OK 74801-2499


Lecture meets at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday.

Office Hours
Day(s)	Time(s)
M through F	8:00 - 9:00 a.m.

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Course Description from the St. Gregory's University Catalog

Designed to provide students a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts of plane trigonometry. Major components include: real number system, circular functions, graphs of the circular functions, trigonometric functions, identities and conditional equations, and solution of triangles. A computational summary of spherical trigonometry will also be presented. Prerequisite: Mathematics 1513 or equivalent.

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Course Goals

The student who successfully completes this course will have added another rung to the intellectual ladder needed to understand the quantitative sciences, analytic geometry, and calculus. Students will be able to verify trigonometric identities, define trigonometric functions, solve conditional trigonometric equations, and solve traditional "triangle problems".
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Materials to be Purchased by the Student

Scientific Calculator
Stationery Supplies
Goldstein, Larry Joel, Trigonometry and Its Applications, Richard D. Irwin, 1993

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Methods of Assessing Student Achievement

The following elements will comprise the student's grade:

Hour Exam I -- Thursday, September 11

Hour Exam II - Thursday, September 25

Hour Exam III- Tuesday, October 14

Hour Exam IV - Thursday, October 23

Hour Exam V  - Tueday, November 4

Hour Exam VI - Thursday, December 4

Semester Exam - Assigned by Vice-President for Academic Affairs

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Assignments

Day   Assignment        Topic   Reading         Homework


1 R 08/28               Review Algebra  1.1-1.2

2 T 09/02               Review  Functions 1.3-1.4

W W 09/03               Last Day for Enrollment and for Class Changes

3 R 09/04               Review Equations 1.5-1.6

4 T 09/09               Review More Algebra 1.7-1.8 --

5 R 09/11               Test I Algebra Review

6 T 09/16               Angles and Angular Measure 2.1-2.2

7 R 09/18               Right triangle definitions 2.3-2.4

8 T 09/23               Graphs                  2.5-2.6

9 R 09/25               Test II--Chapter 2, Sections 2.1-2.6

10 T 09/30              Trigonometric Identities 2.7-2.8

11 R 10/02              Elementary Use of Identities 3.1

12 T 10/07              Addition/Subtraction Identities 3.2

13 R 10/09              Additional Identities 3.3-3.4

14 T 10/14              Test III--Identities

                    R 10/16 Fall Break -- No Classes

                    F 10/16 Fall Break -- No Classes

15 T 10/21              Inverse Functions   3.5-3.7

Midterm Grades Due at 4:30 10/21

16 R 10/23              Test IV-- More Identities

17 T 10/28              Laws of Sine and Cosine 4.1-4.2

18 R 10/30              Polar Coordinates       4.3

19 T 11/04 TEST V  - Laws of Sine and Cosine

20 R 11/06              Vectors I               4.4-4.5

21 T 11/11              Complex Numbers         5.1-5.2

22 R 11/13              Complex Roots           5.3-5.4

23 T 11/18              Exponential Functions   6.1-6.2

24 R 11/20              Log Functions 6.3-6.4

                                                            Friday, 11/24, is the last day to withdraw w/o a WF grade.

25 T 11/25              Exponential and Log Equations 6.5-6.6

26 R 11/25              Parabolae       7.1

                     Thanksgiving Hiatus -- Thursday, November 27 and Friday, November 28

27 T 12/02              Ellipses                7.2

28 R 12/04              Test VI -- Exponential and Log functions

29 T 12/09              Right Spherical Trigonometry  Notes

30 R 12/11              Napier's Rules  Notes

Napier's Rules

Semester Exams Begin Monday, December 15

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Instructor's Words to the Wise

By enrolling at St. Gregory's University, you have proclaimed your desire to join a very special elite, that small group of people for whom knowledge is an ultimate passion. For that desire to reach fruition, you must adopt a Weltanschauung very different from that which the world outside academe has conditioned you; you will need to prove yourself worthy, demonstrate that you share the goals and values of the academic community, and that you have the requisite self-discipline and motivation to be received into their midst. (In this sense, you are rather like a postulant seeking admission to a monastery). This is not a right; your role is not that of a consumer, but rather that of a somewhat suspect outsider seeking acceptance. You will be called upon to abandon adolescent willfulness and adolescent silliness as you mature. Your instructors have expended immense amounts of material, emotional, and spiritual resources as they pursued the goals toward which you now embark. For that reason they do not suffer gladly such puerile remarks as "do we have to know this for the test?", "what good is this if I am going to be an accountant?", "can we get out early today?", "do we have to take notes on this?", "this has nothing to do with my major!" You have incurred the obligation to attend all classes because you are expected to be a part of the class dynamic, not merely a passive observer. You should be in your seat with your paper, pencil, and textbooks at the ready when the instructor walks in the door. Nor should you be so boorish as to be inattentive during class. Classes are not study halls for preparing homework neglected the night before. Rooms darkened for video tape review are not invitations to sleep. Books and papers are put away after class is dismissed, not five minutes before. A minimal expectation of adults is that they be able to control their bodily functions for a fifty minute period so that walking in and out of class to visit the toilet or to sip water should be gratuitous. Late arrival is not only discourteous, but disruptive as well, damaging the experience of those students who have earned that appellation. My role is to facilitate the process of transforming you. I owe you the courtesy of beginning and ending classes on time, of keeping my own knowledge up-to-date, of being honest with you if I think you are straying from the task at hand, of correcting you when you are wrong, and of being utterly fair to you and, at the same time, to the community of scholars I represent. I am less your friend than your conscience. If, when you leave St. Gregory's, you are the same as when you entered, then you and the University have failed.

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Attendance Policy

I follow the attendance policy limned on page 19 of the 1996-1997 St. Gregory's Catalog. That allows you four unquestioned absences in this course with the privilege of making up missed work; athletes and actors may use up most of these in the pursuit of their extracurricular interests. Other reasonable expenditures of these days would include doctor's or dentist's appointments, incapacitating illnesses, etc. Plan ahead and don't waste these days. When they are expended, they are gone! More absences may force me to drop you from the class rolls.
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