Trig question, in Algebra 2 And Precal?

[Janeway]

I am wondering, if we complete the entire Algebra 2 book with Foersters, would we pretty much need to skip the trig section in the precal book? Or still plan to do it?

 

Our plan for this year has been changed up. We will only finish through chapter 12 in Foerster's algebra 2. So I figure next year, we will start the year with chapters 13-15 (the trig chapters) before moving on to Precal. 

 

We have not decided between doing Foersters on our own with precal next year, or using DO. 

[Mike in SA]

Do NOT skimp on trig - particularly if calculus is anywhere in the future!

 

Trigonometric substitutions need to be as comfortable as basic algebra. They will be called upon extensively.

 

I strongly recommend letting any repetition stay in scope. Even three rounds of trig will not hurt.

[Janeway]

Do NOT skimp on trig - particularly if calculus is anywhere in the future!

 

Trigonometric substitutions need to be as comfortable as basic algebra. They will be called upon extensively.

 

I strongly recommend letting any repetition stay in scope. Even three rounds of trig will not hurt.

I was wondering if they were the same, so redundant...or does it go more in depth.

[wapiti]

Good question.  My eighth grader had alg 2 at school this year, but will attend a high school where he can't quite squeak past the (brutal) testing out of their honors alg 2 and trig course, unless perhaps he works over the summer.  I am going to give him the option, knowing it's unlikely that he'll be motivated enough to do the work even though he's annoyed about repeating the alg 2 part.  The text for the honors alg 2/trig will be Dolciani, though I don't know how much the course will use materials outside the text, and the text for honors precalc will be Demana.  I see there is trig in Demana, but I am guessing that the repetition will be important.  Demana seems likely to be much more in-depth than Dolciani on the trig, yes?

Edited May 1, 2017 by wapiti

[Mike in SA]

I was wondering if they were the same, so redundant...or does it go more in depth.

Algebra 2 gives a basic intro only. Though it could conceivably be skipped before precalculus, I would not recommend it.

 

I haven't seen any algebra 2 text (certainly not Forester) adequately cover trig to consider skipping prwcalculus' coverage. A dedicated trig course might be sufficient, though.

[MamaSprout]

I've wondered this, too. Dd will have Trig in Geometry, Algebra 2 and Precalculus, and two of the three Calc options I'm looking at only have Alg 2 & Trig as a prereq.

 

This is definitely a kid who will do lots of calc, so maybe I need to find an interesting precalc textbook or class, because she might revolt at the third pass through trig. :o)

[Janeway]

Ok..so then I think our plan will be to do chapters 13-15 in the fall. And then move on to precal knowing it might go in to 11th grade and do the trig there too. 

[RootAnn]

Janeway - I wouldn't do Ch 13-15 of Alg 2 if you are going to do the whole Foerster PreCal book.

Just start with PreCal.

 

My dd is doing the trig in his Alg2/Trig book, but I'm using it as an intro so that it'll stick better when she sees it again next year. We need LOTS of review & repetition here.

Foerster will start the trig subjects as if you haven't seen them, so you don't need to have covered it with his Alg2 book first.

[kiana]

I would skip the trig sections in the algebra book before I skipped them in the precalculus book. If you're just finishing now I'd just go ahead and start precalc in the fall. If you were done in mid spring I'd say to go ahead and do them because that long of a break from math would be bad. 

[Jann in TX]

Foerster himself said that if students would be going on to Pre-Calc then they should skip the Trig sections at the end of the Algebra 2 text as the Pre-Calc program covered the same material then moved beyond.

[Mike in SA]

I've wondered this, too. Dd will have Trig in Geometry, Algebra 2 and Precalculus, and two of the three Calc options I'm looking at only have Alg 2 & Trig as a prereq.

 

This is definitely a kid who will do lots of calc, so maybe I need to find an interesting precalc textbook or class, because she might revolt at the third pass through trig. :o)

 

:)

 

This is what we had to do, as well.  We actually had older DS run through three books of precalc, after having already done it in geometry and algebra 2.  The third precalc was AoPS, which is just a *tad* bit more advanced, but also much more interesting!

[SparklyUnicorn]

I don't think you should skip it.  I don't find many of the trig concepts all that intuitive so they need to be repeated if possible.  In fact, this summer in between calc 1 and 2 (I'm starting 2 in the fall) I plan to do a self study trig course.  I would like the trig stuff to be more automatic than it is.