Night Elf Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 My son is taking an online Calculus class with Keystone, but the lessons don't have enough explanation of concepts. My DH is a mathy person and is helping our son but we would like to have some kind of text that would have better explanations. He was given a text which is basically a collection of worked out examples with very little help. Can you recommend something he can use alongside his course as a reference material? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 What about Stewart? You can buy an old edition for under $5 on abebooks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Second the recommendation for Stewart, if you want a physical book. If you are okay with an ebook and either reading it online or printing it out, you can get Gilbert Strang's calculus text online here: http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-textbook-spring-2005/textbook/ You can download chapter by chapter or the whole textbook as a single file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbmamaz Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 khan academy - free videos explaining math. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted January 30, 2013 Author Share Posted January 30, 2013 What about Stewart? You can buy an old edition for under $5 on abebooks There are so many. What exactly am I looking for? I see multiple editions of student manuals, texts and study guides. Those are just the titles so I'm not sure what is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 There are so many. What exactly am I looking for? I see multiple editions of student manuals, texts and study guides. Those are just the titles so I'm not sure what is helpful. I would go with the actual text. And if this is his first calculus course, you want "single variable calculus", or "volume1". Whether it says "early transcendentals" or not does not matter, that just refers to the order in which material is taught and when transcendental functions are introduced (although I always have to chuckle when I see the title as it invokes images of some cult). I do not know anything about the study guide, but the text explains the material fairly well. "Study guides" are often written by somebody else but the original author, so I tend to avoid those. "Student manual" would be a solution manual - NOT what you are looking for. Since calculus is "old", you can buy an old edition; there is no need to spend money on a recent one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted January 31, 2013 Share Posted January 31, 2013 When prepping to teach calculus, I read from a couple of different texts that I have as reference. I remember liking the Thomas/Finney text best. I have the 6th edition. Our cc uses Larson. It's okay. (Although I hate hate hate the version they do for business calc where they just delete sections from this text. Makes the bus. calc. course just not make sense!) The Stewart texts have had the violin since the 1st edition (what I used in college in the early 90s). It's ridiculous how they do new texts every year or two. You'll likely be okay with any edition - and sometimes reading the material from multiple texts (and working the examples - paper and pencil in hand!) can really help with understanding. InterAct software can give extra practice problems if you need the online support (and Help Me Solve It feature will walk through the problem.... can be helpful instead of just examples from the text). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joan in GE Posted January 31, 2013 Share Posted January 31, 2013 Here's a thread on Calculus - how we and others did it....There are video links for various texts, discussion of texts etc...If you 'tag' your thread 'calculus', you'll be able to click on that and find other threads about it as well... HTH, Joan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twigs Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 … InterAct software can give extra practice problems if you need the online support (and Help Me Solve It feature will walk through the problem.... can be helpful instead of just examples from the text). :iagree: and it's free! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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