USG Teaching & Learning Conference 2016

Wanjun Hu, Li Feng

From the student's perspective, pre-calculus classes are hard for three reasons: (1) there are so many scattered math concepts and calculations, (2) the professors are not teaching in the students' comfortable way, (3) the textbook is expensive but not helpful. Taking students' concerns into consideration, we provide a pamphlet of about 16 topics. For each topic, we define the algebraic form (what one can write down in Mathematics). Then, we explain its geometric meaning (what one can see). Finally, we list some types of problems and ways to solve them. To facilitate students' learning, we provide a copy of free textbook chapter from OpenStax, and a sample test, so that students can prepare for tests and exams with targets. For a comparison, two sections are taught with one using this new strategy and one using traditional way. Our results show that no significant difference between them in terms of students' performance.