MAT 221

Spring 2011

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Days 58 - 60 Final Assessment.    Combined Test Questions from Tests 1, 2, 3
Day 57, Thursday 5/5 Review
Day 56, Wednesday 5/4 Review
Day 55, Tuesday 5/3 More on 5.4
Day 54, Monday 5/2 Section 5.4
Day 53, Thursday 4/27 More on 5.3
Day 52, Wednesday 4/27 Section 5.3
Day 51, Tuesday 4/26 More exercises from 5.1 and 5.2
Day 50, Monday 4/25 Worked more on section 5.1 and 5.2
Day 49, Thursday, 4/21 Handed back Tests.  Students continued work on Last Turn In.  Loaded programs for use in Chapter 5 on Calculators.
Day 48, Wednesday, 4/20 Students completed Student Survey of Teaching.  Handed out End of Semester Information. Began discussion of Riemann Sums (section 5.1)  Worked with 4 subdivisions.  Asked students to complete the work for 8 subdivisions for Monday.
Day 47, Tuesday, 4/19 Test # 3
Day 46:  Monday, 4/18 Review for Test
Day 45:  Thursday Work in lab on Last Turn In.  Will review for test on Monday.  Test will cover chapter 4 material, and the derivatives of the inverse trig functions.
Day 44:  Wednesday, 4/13 Handed out Last Turn In.  Talked some about it for a while, and how best to approach it.  Showed the development of the formula for the derivative of the inverse Sine function.  Gave the formulas for inverse Cos and inverse Tan.  Did several examples of finding the derivatives using the formulas.
Day 43:  Tuesday, 4/12 Handed back GW 7, and talked about some of the ideas.  Covered section 4.7 - L'Hopital's rule.
Day 42:  Monday, 4/11 Worked  on section 4.4.
Day 41:  Thursday, 4/7 Worked in Lab with problems from section 4.3.  Handed out sheets with my work on 3 different problems - one a given function, and 2 examples of families of functions.
Day 40:  Wednesday, 4/6 Discuss section 4.2:  Extreme Value Theorem.  Worked on two exercises.
Day 39:  Tuesday, 4/5 Talk more about section 4.1.  Do two additional problems - one a family of functions, and another based on info about derivatives.  Collected GW 7
Day 38:  Monday, 4/4 Hand back tests and answers.  Hand out PE Unit 3.  Talk about section 4.1.  Students should make sure they read and think deeply about the material in the boxes.  Did an exercise from 4.1, and started to talk about what it means to analyze a function.
Day 37:  Thursday 3/31 Test 2.  Postponed due date for GW 7 until Tuesday, 4/5 so that students could ask questions in class.
Day 36:  Wednesday 3/30 Review for Test 2 on Thursday
Day 35: Tuesday 3/29 Class Cancelled
Day 34:  Monday 3/28 Class Cancelled
Day 33:  Thursday 3/24 Had students work on GW 7.
Day 32:  Wednesday, 3/23 Discussed derivative of Ln(x).  Handed out GW 7, and discussed the assignment, particularly the part about the second derivative.  Referred students back to the work we had reviewed from some of the starred problems on the practice sheet.  Test will cover up through the ln (x) function, but will not cover the inverse Trig functions.
Day 31:  Tuesday, 3/22 Covered section 3.5:  Trig functions.  Went over a number of questions from earlier sections.
Day 30:  Monday, 3/21 Reviewed Chain Rule.  Announced Test # 2 will be next Tuesday
Day 29:  Thursday 3/10 Covered section 3.4:  Chain Rule
Day 28:  Wednesday 3/9 Covered Section 3.3:  Product Rule and Quotient Rule
Day 27:  Tuesday 3/8 Handed out cards with midterm grades on them and had students check their grade against their success strategy sheet.  Handed out NYSMATYC test - Golden Opportunity sheet (In box outside my office).  This opportunity is available on Thursday, March 10th between 8 AM - 6 PM.  Discussed rule for exponential functions a bit more, and did a number of examples from section 3.2.
Day 26:  Monday 3/7 Handed back tests and answer key.  Talked briefly about the results.  Answered a couple questions on the practice exercises from 3.1.  Handed out the Practice Exercises Unit 2.   Worked through how we could decipher the rule for derivative of an exponential function.
Day 25:  Thursday 3/3 Test # 1 on Chapter 2 concepts
Day 24:  Wednesday 3/2 Discussed section 3.1.  Laid out 5 preliminary rules for derivatives including derivative of a constant, derivative of a linear function, constant multiple rule, derivative of a sum or difference, and power rule.  Did a number of exercises to demonstrate these rules.
Day 23:  Tuesday 3/1 Reviewed for test on Thursday.
Day 22:  Monday 2/28 Presented material from section 2.4 - interpreting derivatives.
Day 21:  Thursday 2/24 Answered some questions on the GW 6, discussed a little about prepping for the first exam next week.  We will finish Chapter 2 on Monday, and as long as students have questions, we will spend the entire class on Tuesday reviewing.  I will start Chapter 3 on Wednesday, and test will be on Thursday.  Handed out sheet on going from the derivative graph to a graph of a function.  In AM class, went over 2 questions from text book in section 2.5.  In PM class, answered some questions from practice exercises.
Day 20: Wednesday 2/23 Reviewed material from Wednesday, and continued discussion of the graph of f(x) and table of derivative values.  Handed out Putting it all together for Derivatives and worked on that in class.  Announced Test # 1 will be Thursday, 3/3
Day 19:  Thursday 2/17 Went through setting up tables of difference quotients in MathCad to consider derivatives.  Also went over setting up the actual derivative function using the Calculus Toolbar.  Built the tables needed for GW 6 - Due Monday, 2/28
Day 18:  Wednesday 2/16 Went over the 7 different ways to consider derivative.  Talked about concavity (section 2.5). Input a good approximation of the derivative of f(x) at x values into the graphing calculator Y0, and used this to consider ideas of concavity.  Handed out "gold sheet" on relationships between a function and it's first and second derivative.  Began work on yellow sheet with graph of f(x) and table of derivative values.
Day 17: Tuesday 2/15 Had students offer the 7 different ways we can answer the question what is the derivative of f(x) at x = a, and again classified them as graphical, numeric, algebraic or conceptual/definition.  Talked about what the practice exercises from 2.1 and 2.2 were asking for to help students distinguish between the different types of problems.  Discussed section 2.3 - Derivative as a function.  Developed the derivative function for the quadratic function we have been working with.  Talked briefly about what we can tell about the derivative from the graph of a function.
Day 16:  Monday 2/14 Handed back MathCad quiz (GW 5).  Talked briefly about MathCad, and the root function.  Asked students to make sure they had worked with the MathCad directions on Derivatives by Thursday.  Worked through the algebraic definition of derivative to find the derivative of our f(x) at x = 5.  Developed 7 statements to answer the question what is the derivative of f(x) at x = a. 
Day 15:  Thursday 2/10 MathCad Quiz (GW 5) and work on GW 4 in lab.
Day 14:  Wednesday 2/9 Continued working with tables for average rates of change as h approaches 0 from both sides.  Discussed what the values in the table represent, and how they help us consider the derivative of a function at a point.  Handed out instructions for putting in a formula for the slopes of secant lines the calculator in Y9 (Gold sheet outside my office), and used this new function to continue to explore the idea of derivative.  We started thinking about the various ways we can describe what a derivative is....and will continue to work on this and capture the ideas in writing.
Day 13:  Tuesday 2/8 Finished up last threads on limits.  Began discussion of section 2.2.  Presented how we would numerically consider the rate of change at a particular point for a particular function.  Developed tables, average rates of change, limit notation.  We will continue working with these ideas tomorrow.  Remember, MathCad Quiz on pages 5 - 10 on Thursday!
Day 12:  Monday, 2/7 Handed out Bonus Opportunity for meeting with Student Leaders (gold), GW 4 (green), and passed back graded work with answers.  Worked through ideas of limits as input approaches a point, and as input increases and decreases without bound using a particular rational function.  First discussed how we would find the y intercept, x intercept(s) and inputs where function is not defined.  Used calculator to explore numerical behavior as we approached each of the points where the function was not defined.  Used calculator to explore "tail" behavior.  Reviewed verbal interpretation, symbolic notation, and graphical meaning.  We will tie up any loose ends on this tomorrow, and will move into Chapter 2.
Day 11:  Thursday, 2/3 AM class took first MathCad quiz.  Worked on instructions for creating Tables in MathCad.  Collected GW 2.  Students should review both sheets on Limits, and do both sides of the Purple Practice Sheet on Limits.  We will review this material on Monday, and will then begin Chapter 2.
Day 10:  Wednesday, 2/2 SNOW!  Classes cancelled.
Day 9:  Tuesday 2/1 SNOW!  Classes cancelled.  Students should work on Limits as inputs increase and decrease without bound.   Once you have worked with the idea, complete the Practice Exercises.  Also continue work on MathCad.  GW 2 will be due on THURSDAY, 2/3   
Day 8:  Monday 1/31 Teacher out sick.  Students should practice pages 5 - 10 with MathCad.  Also complete work for limits as we approach a points.  GW 2 also is due this week.
Day 7:  Thursday 1/27 AM Class cancelled due to weather.  MathCad Quiz will be given next Thursday along with 2nd quiz on pages 5 - 10 from MathCad package.  Please make sure you use the new pages that I handed out in class (see below).

PM Class - MathCad Quiz given.  Students worked on pages 5 - 10.  Handed out Practice Problems for Evaluating and Solving.  There will be a quiz on this material on Thursday, 2/3.
Day 6: Wednesday 1/26 Handed out new pages 5 - 10 for MathCad (sorry trees!!!).  (Yellow - in bin outside my office).  Discussed limits as we approach a particular input value.  Handed out notes on Limits (yellow), as well as Practice Exercises for limits (purple).  Students should work on the front of the purple sheet creating tables, using limit notation, verbalizing, and looking at graphs.  We will tie up any loose ends on this topic on Monday.  MathCad day tomorrow!  Handed out GW 2 - Due Wednesday 2/2
Day 5: Tuesday, 1/25 Had students review their work from Practice Exercise Sheet 2.  Gave out my write up of answers (pink sheet in bin outside my office).  Tomorrow we will start discussing limits.  Students should have their graphing calculator with them.  Remember....MathCad quiz at beginning of class on Thursday.
Day 4:  Monday, 1/24 Handed out green Success Strategies Sheet, as well as examples of how to use Success Strategies grade (both are in bin outside my office).  Had students work together on the Linear Function work from the first purple sheet, and then handed out answer (pink, outside my office).  Handed out Class Work Sheet 2:  Exponential Functions, and had students work together on that.  Handed out answer (pink - outside my office).  Finally handed out Practice Exercises Unit 1.  Students should complete the problems on the 2nd purple sheet for tomorrow.
Day 3:  Thursday 1/20 Handed out MathCad Introduction package (yellow - in bin outside my office).  Showed students some of the basic ideas of MathCad.  Students worked on pages 2, 3 & 4.  Handed out Using your Angel ToolBox, (gold) and showed students how to save files in the toolbox.  Handed out Practice Exercise Sheet 2 (purple).  Students should complete the problems from sections 1.2 and 1.4 for Monday.  Handed out MathCad Practice Exercises (purple - in bin outside my office).  There will be a MathCad quiz on next Thursday on defining functions, graphing and modifying graphs, and creating text regions with math inserts.
Day 2:  Wednesday 1/19 Handed out materials from yesterday to students who were there for the first time.  Had students work independently and in groups on pre-req material on Linear Functions (yellow sheet).  Handed out Notes on First Week and First Day Homework (purple).  Handed out answer to question on the back of yellow sheet (pink - outside my office)
Day 1:  Tuesday 1/18 Snowy mess!!  Only some students made it to class.  Handed out Syllabus (white), Schedule and General Information (gold), Graded Work 1 (green), Students filled out information cards.  I reviewed MyDCC, Angel, and my website.