Advanced Placement Calculus A/AB/BC

I. Instructors: Derek Fromal, AB Mathematics, Duke University; MA Educational Technology, Walden University (email: [email protected]) Stephen Fuguet, BS Secondary Math Education, Kutztown University (email: [email protected]) Lauren Gaffney, BS Mathematics/BA Education, Villanova University; MS Mathematics, Villanova University (email: [email protected]) Jonathan Nyce, BS Secondary Math Education, Pennsylvania State University; MS Education, Wilkes University (email: [email protected])

II. Prerequisites: Students must have successfully completed Accelerated Trigonometry/Pre-Calc or Honors Pre-Calculus. Any student taking AP Calculus should have received teacher recommendation.

III. Course Content Overview: This course is designed to prepare students for the Advanced Placement AB or BC Calculus Exam. Students will explore limits, differentiation, slope fields and integration of polynomial, rational, radical, exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric functions. There will be an emphasis on the application of these techniques. This course will also focus on the use of (graphing calculator) technology in mathematics.

IV. Summer Assignments Prerequisite: Students are strongly encouraged to complete practice problems that cover the first chapter of our textbook. This will be a review of Algebra II, Trigonometry, and Pre-calculus material. The purpose of this is to focus on the skills and knowledge necessary from previous math courses in order to be successful in the AP program. Summer materials and assignments can be found on the teacher’s websites.

V. Calculators: A graphing calculator is required for this course. We are most familiar with the TI- 83(Plus) and TI-84(Plus), and have some experience with the TI-89 and TI-Nspire. Our recommendation for a calculator is the TI-84 (Plus). If purchasing one of these calculators is not financially feasible, one can be provided for you.

The Advanced Placement Calculus Philosophy An Advanced Placement course in calculus consists of one full year (two semesters of classes) of work that is comparable to first-year calculus courses in colleges and universities. It is expected that students who take the AP course will seek college credit, college placement, or both, from institutions of higher learning (College Board AP Calculus Course Description, 2016). This means that every student is aiming to take the AP Calculus AB or AP Calculus BC exam in May 2018. Every student taking AP Calculus is making a 12-month commitment (summer prerequisite, fall course, spring course and exam). The AP Calculus AB and BC exams will take place on Tuesday May 15, 2018.

AP Collegeboard - www.apcentral.collegeboard.com

Hatboro-Horsham AP Calculus Summer Assignment/Contract

Your Calculus teachers have chosen 21 precalculus topics, spread over 5 assignments, that you really need to know and have mastered before you start your calculus book. This is not meant to be a complete review and if some of these topics are still a mystery to you, ask your teacher for an algebra, trigonometry, or precalculus book to borrow to sharpen your skills. The topics are not the only ones essential to mastering precalculus but were chosen because they pop up continuously in calculus examples. The way you see these examples expressed demonstrates how you will see them in calculus problems. After every general topic and description, you will see sample problems with solutions worked out. On the back of each page, you will find roughly 12-15 problems that are similar to the examples.

These assignments contain just those concepts that are important for you in learning AP calculus. Topics like the conic sections, imaginary numbers, and finding rational zeros of functions, while important in precalculus, are rarely used in AP Calculus so they aren’t included. You can be sure that if you review and master all the topics in these assignments, you are well on your way to doing well in AP Calculus. The reason many students worldwide struggle in AP calculus is because their precalculus abilities are not good. Spending a couple of hours on these assignments insures that is not going to happen to you! It is suggested that you spread the assignments out over the summer, complete 2-3 topics per week, instead of waiting till the day before school starts to do all 21!

In the past these assignments have been mandatory; however, this year you are strongly encouraged to do the assignments and bring them with you to the first day of class. Keep in mind that within the first week of classes, you will take a test on all of this information. Therefore, the more time you spend working on these problems, the better prepared you will be for the Pre-Requisite Test.

Here are the steps you need to take to get started on the summer assignments. Step 1: Sign up for our Summer Remind101 notifications. Text the message @APCalcABC to 81010. Step 2: There are several places where you can find the assignments for the summer. 1) On Mr. Nyce’s, Mrs. Gaffney’s or Mr. Fuget’s teacher websites. Teacher websites can be found at www.hatboro-horsham.org/hhhs

Please talk about this letter and your expectations for this class with your parent(s).