Innovation in Teaching Applied Precalculus

Abstract

In this joint talk, we’ll discuss some pedagogical methods we have developed and used in Applied Precalculus, a course for pre-Business majors at TCU to prepare them for Applied Calculus. The population of students who take this course frequently provides certain challenges to the instructor, so we implemented a new course structure in several sections of the course a few years ago, and it has been evolving ever since. In this new course structure, the course is flipped, with exposure to material happening outside of class, and the course is also somewhat individually-paced, incorporating mastery-based grading in a series of module quizzes. We will discuss our motivation for this course structure, details on its implementation, how it has evolved over time, and what challenges still remain.