Homeschool World Forum

I have a rising 12th grader who took calculus at the community college, earning an A and a B, respectively each semester. He did struggle a lot in the second semester. Also, he was weak on trig.

I'm not a math person (in fact, I enrolled him in the wrong calculus class initially). Any suggestions for what I should have him study this year? Would it be better for him to go back over weak areas in trig? What comes after calculus?

I am open to any option, not just having him dual enroll again.

thanks for any ideas!
margaret7

Calculus 2 comes next, then calculus 3. If he's not a math person, though, chances are his major won't require math beyond calculus. Check with the college he's going to and find out what level of math they require. If he's already done everything necessary, have him go back over the trig.

As Theodore said, it depends on what he wants/going to study in college. If he is going to study non-math related subjects, than studying more math would not really serve him. In general, except for engineering school, Advanced Trig is quite useless. If he is going to a science discipline, often Linear Algebra is required, but again, it would depend.

Therefore, check with the college what are the requirements for his intended major and get him to study those.

As for not doing well on Trig - it doesn't matter

Theodore,

Applied calculus can be difficult, but not hard. Proving theorems and such in calculus [the theory of it] is hard. The difference I put between difficult and hard is that the former means you need to know (remember) much and practice quite a bit before you can do it well. The latter (hard) means even such might not do the trick. But often calculus becomes difficult and even hard because it is not taught correctly, and often the underlying ideas are not being made really clear in a way a student can understand those intuitively. I have seen many students change their opintion once the three ingredients (intuition, facts, and practice) are present. Proving calculus theorems can be hard since quite a number of those require a real deep understanding of the underlying theory and structures, as well as being well trained in methods of mathematical proofs, which not all are easy to master and apply in new situations.

I have not seen a REALLY GOOD textbook for calculus yet

As for discrete math - this can be and is hard, even when it is only the applied part. The reason being that even having the three ingridients does not ensure the ability to solve a new problem. It requires having the structure of the problem in one's mind (and that can be hard for some problems) and often having some creativity in changing the problem structure/repersentation to make it solvable. In fact, set theory (which is one of the subjects within discrete math) was taken out as a required course just when I finished my undergrad [where I come from we only study one thing, no general studies and such] because it was deemed as generally too difficult for students.

So take solace, you are not alone

I'm using Calculus: Early Trascendental Functions (Third Edition, Larson, Hostetler, Edwards).