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Does the end of Jacobs Algebra cover some Algebra 2 stuff?


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(not really sure if it's called "Teacher's Guide", but it has the Set I and Set III answers....)

 

Anyway, there are three "tracks" outlined in the beginning of that book. Chapter 14, 16, and 17 are not listed in the second track.

 

I'm wishing we had skipped Ch. 14 - lots of stuff I remember learning, and never doing anything with - LOL! But, ds was/is having a little trouble with Fractional Equations in Ch. 15. So, I am going to have him stay there, and we will work on those a little each day this summer. (There are extra problems to pull from in the Test Masters book.) I figure it would be better to get those down solid, than finish the book.

 

Best wishes!

 

ETA: this really should have been under OP - sorry!

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I compared Alg 1 by Mary Dolciani to Harold Jacobs Algebra. IMO HJ doesn't even cover as much Alg 1 material as Mary Dolciani's Alg 1. I would count HJ as only part of an Algebra I book.

 

Carole

 

We had no trouble at all moving directly to Foersters AL II from Jacobs and I feel it did a really thorough job of prepping ds for more adv. algebra. We didn't have any gaps.

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The 1965 Math standards and current standards are TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

 

You honestly cannot compare the two.

 

Jacobs Algebra has more Algebra content at the CURRENT Algebra 1 level than is 'required'. It does not have enough Algebra 2 for a 'complete course'.

 

The 1965 Algebra 2 courses covered MUCH more material--lots of what is now covered in Pre-Calc.

 

In fact--most students went directly from Algebra 2 to Calculus.

 

The sequence was changed because MOST students were not able to make that jump. "Pre-Calculus" was added and the concepts/order in Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 were adjusted. Trig was moved from Algebra 2 to a separate course (or part of Pre-Calc).

 

Colleges base THEIR math courses on today's standards. Community college Introductory/Beginning Algebra has the SAME standards as high school Algebra 1... Intermediate Algebra is Algebra 2...

 

The newest 'trend' has Pre-Calc being taught over a 2 year period... this is because so many students are being rushed into Algebra 1 in 7th or 8th grades... and many of them are NOT mature enough to make the leap into Calculus in 11th or 12th.

 

There is a MUCH MUCH higher percentage of students who are taking upper maths now than there was in 1965. Even in the early 1980's Algebra was NOT a requirement for graduation in most states!

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I've finally decided that that's what we'll do with dd. She's young, so we should still be able to get some calculus in her senior year. Jann--do you know what schools are calling this 2-year sequence? Is it pre-calc 1 and pre-calc 2? I'm currently thinking that we'll have "Trig" (she's almost finished the trig chapters from Foerster's pre-calc) and then something else--maybe "Topics in Advance Math" or "Advance Algebra"? It will be the non-trig portion of Foerster's Pre-calc--which is more than just algebra.

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In Texas the Pre-Calc course spread over 2 years counts fulfills the 4 math credits required... Our district is calling it Advanced Math 1 and 2.

 

While you can call it anything you want I'm still hesitant to award more than one-year's worth of credits... If a student completed an 11th grade English course in 2 years because they moved 'slowly' thorugh the material I would not count it as 2 full credits of English...some students just take longer to process the advanced material. The state of Texas has recgonized that while some students are ready for Algebra in 8th grade--MANY of those same students are NOT ready for Calculus in 12th...but after the extra year of mental maturity thanks to being in a 4 semester Pre-Calc course they are more than ready for Calc one and they tend to do better too!

 

Pre-Calc is a college level course. It is offered as a one-semester course or a two semester course...both fulfil THE pre-requisite for Calculus--one just happens to take twice as long.

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thanks Jann.

 

I had thought about only awarding one credit regardless of how long it takes. She'll have plenty of credits overall, and will have math credits from alg 1 to intro to calculus by the time we're done. However--I am realizing that we are covering trig in more detail than we might otherwise, and that "slowing down" will also allow us to cover all of the chapters that are sometimes omitted if time is short (intro to probability, intro to statistics, sequences, etc.) So I think it will be more than a standard pre-calculus class. We'll see--maybe I'll call it 1 credit of pre-calc and a half credit of advanced math. I'm assuming Texas is awarding 2 credits--and that their 4 semester class covers material in more depth than their 2 semester course.

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It's been too long for me to remember - it just seems like some of this stuff was harder than what I was doing in Algebra one.

 

Every good Algebra book "delves" into the material from the next course. By no means skip that material!!! Students learn math exactly in that way...dipping in their toes, then up to their ankles, then wading around to the knees, then eventually swimming away. I liken the Jacobs coverage of quadratic functions as toe-dipping level, not even close to wading yet.

 

It is challenging material, but is built gradually from the prior chapters. So, your Algebra 1 student should be able to do the math at a "just do it this way" level of understanding. Only next year in Algebra 2 when it is built up again will she go wading off into the deep end...and swim or drown. GRIN.

 

Lori

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Yes, this course will be different from the 1 year course.

It will also cover the first 1-2 chapters of Calculus (just a taste).

 

If you camp out on probability and statistics for a semester you can award a half credit for that as it is its own course in college! (You could call it "Advanced Math 2: Probability and Statistics").

 

My middle dd will be a Jr next fall. Once we start Pre-Calc I will be able to tell if she will need the slower route or the one-year route... she wants to go to college as 'Pre-Dental' so she needs a LOT of Math!

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The 1965 Math standards and current standards are TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

 

When did the major change occur?

 

My 80's Foerster Alg I has a lot more than the 2000 Dolciani dd uses at school, but I don't remember the Diophantine equations from the '65 Dolciani book that we had a thread about recently at all. Sometimes I wonder what else we missed.

 

I just really need to get one of the '65 Dolicani's before my last dd finishes algebra!

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When did the major change occur?

 

My 80's Foerster Alg I has a lot more than the 2000 Dolciani dd uses at school, but I don't remember the Diophantine equations from the '65 Dolciani book that we had a thread about recently at all. Sometimes I wonder what else we missed.

 

I just really need to get one of the '65 Dolicani's before my last dd finishes algebra!

 

In the 1960's and early '70's, math and science texts raised the bar, part of the government's post-Sputnik push to boost dramatically the level of math and science education in schools. Many of those math books were written by mathematicians (not math educators), creating the so-called "new math". By the early '80's, there was a reaction against the "new math", hence another radical change in texts. It was the math educators who rewrote the books, often focusing on algorithms over theory.

 

As I have mentioned previously, those old Dolcianis inspired me to become a math major. As other have noted, completion of the old Dolciani Algebra I and Algebra II/Trig books usually makes the modern precalculus course redundant.

 

Admittedly, there is another change that was added to "the standards" in the last few decades, that of probability and statistics. While one does find some probability and statistics work in a Dolciani, many students who used those texts initially may not have been exposed to that content. It seems that middle school children today see more statistics than their parents may have seen throughout much of their academic career (age and major dependent, of course).

 

Jane

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  • 11 years later...

Jann in TX, 

Dd has done Elementary Algebra, Math: a human endeavor and is working through Harold Jacobs Geometry (1e) this year. I'm trying to figure out what I need to cover in order to be able to give her credit for Algebra 1 and 2 and what to call the human endeavor book on a transcript. This child is one that needs to move slowly through the material in order to understand it. Next year is senior year for her. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

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4 hours ago, dovrar said:

Jann in TX, 

Dd has done Elementary Algebra, Math: a human endeavor and is working through Harold Jacobs Geometry (1e) this year. I'm trying to figure out what I need to cover in order to be able to give her credit for Algebra 1 and 2 and what to call the human endeavor book on a transcript. This child is one that needs to move slowly through the material in order to understand it. Next year is senior year for her. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

You might want to start a new thread since this one is such a zombie.

I'm not sure what specific topics you need to add to call it Algebra II, but I'm thinking it's going to be a lot. IIRC, Jacobs Algebra only has a chapter or two with some very introductory Algebra II content. I would personally make Human Endeavor its own course. I adore Human Endeavor, by the way. It's brilliant. But you probably need to get a Foersters or other textbook or enroll your student in an online course to honestly award a credit called Algebra II.

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