MAT 153 Precalculus

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:   MAT 153 Precalculus
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a Precalculus course for undergraduate students by multiple instructors, including Sharon Lanaghan and Matthew G. Jones, at CSUDH. The open textbook provides a foundation of skills in polynomials and rational functions, exponential functions, and trigonometric functions, including an understanding of graphs and tables as well as the ability to manipulate expressions and equations. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to develop core skills and to support a standards-based approach to course grading. Most student access the open textbook in PDF or via an inexpensive print copy available through Amazon.com.

Course Title and Number:  MAT 153 Precalculus
Brief Description of course highlights:  Topics include functions and their graphs; linear, quadratic, rational, exponential, and logarithmic functions; composition, transformation and arithmetic of functions; inverse function; inequalities; right-triangle trigonometry and circular motion; applications to contextual problems. Preparation for MAT 191: Calculus I.

Student population: This course is primarily for STEM majors who intend to take Calculus. Students are qualified for this course if they either place at Quantitative Reasoning Placement Level II STEM, or with a qualifying placement score. The largest number of students are in the Computer Science major, with the rest being Chemistry, Biochemistry, Computer Technology, Mathematics, and Physics majors, and the occasional Biology or Liberal Studies major.

Learning or student outcomes:  Students will model, analyze, solve and understand quantitative problems arising from linear, quadratic, exponential, rational and trigonometric functions. Students will increase their perseverance in solving unfamiliar problems. Students will communicate their understanding of mathematics both formally and informally throughout the course. Students will use appropriate technological tools to make sense of, solve and communicate their understanding of quantitative problems.. 

Key challenges faced and how resolved: Students arrive with a wide variety of mathematical preparation and expectations about the work involved to succeed in the course. The current textbook attempts to address gaps in prior knowledge while also building up skills in areas like interpreting graphs and understanding trigonometric function applications which few students bring to the class.

Textbook /OER/Low cost Title: Pre-Calculus Workbook

Brief Description: The chapters are: Modeling with Linear and Quadratic Functions, Modeling with Exponential and Logarithmic Functions, Rational and Other Functions, Trigonometric Functions, Solving Trigonometric Equations, Problem Solving with Trigonometric Functions, and Trigonometric Identities. Each section is laid out in workbook-style, with space for students to add their own notes and work. Few examples are given, with the intention that instructors lead students through solving the problems in the section. Each section includes Exercises where students review concepts and procedures from the current and previous sections of the book.
Please provide a link to the resource https://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=1379008

Print copies can be ordered from Amazon.com:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BF9GS4P
Authors: Sharon Lanaghan and Matthew G. Jones
Student access:  Students can print textbook at low cost through Amazon.com or can obtain the PDF, which instructors can obtain through MERLOT. 

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  If students print the workbook themselves or view it online, they save $185 compared to a text like Stewart’s Precalculus.
License: Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. Students save money and the textbook is targeted to the specific needs of the students, without a lot of extraneous material.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? We developed the material ourselves as part of a Course Redesign grant from the CSU Chancellor’s Office.

Sharing Best Practices: We have found that writing our own textbook, while work-intensive, allows us to continually update the course based on our experience and that of other instructors in the course.

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned. We initially used another free resource which was not at a level appropriate to our course. This is how we decided that custom materials were the best approach.

Instructor Name:  
Sharon Lanaghan and Matthew G. Jones
California State University, Dominguez Hills

-  Sharon Lanaghan is a Mathematics instructor who teaches courses including College Algebra, Problem Solving, and Math for Elementary Teachers.  
-  Matthew Jones is a Mathematics instructor who teaches Seminar in Mathematics Education, Geometry, Number Theory, and Problem Solving. 
A link to their university page.   https://www.csudh.edu/math/faculty/

Please describe the courses you teach.

Lanaghan - Math for Elementary Teachers, Statistics, Pre-Calculus and Calc I, but mostly I now teach our one and two semester Pre-Calc classes.
Jones - Mathematics education, computational commutative algebra

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  We are proponents of active learning, and are both involved in mathematics education research, particularly surrounding professional development and student learning in first-year mathematics.