Math 1100 Algebra I

PURPOSE OF MATH 1100

The purpose of all of the developmental mathematics courses is to support student success academically and beyond by advancing critical thinking and reasoning skills. Specifically in Algebra I, as a team, we will create and critique explanations and justifications.  We will also determine which tools/strategies are needed to complete an argument.  A theme throughout the semester is to examine statement to determine if it is sometimes true of always true.  Then justify the claim with examples if the statement is sometimes true or complete explanation of every possibility if the statement is always true.

The Developmental Math Program in the Department of Mathematics at Western Michigan University offers Math 1100, a mastery-based algebra course covering the arithmetic foundations of algebra, properties of real numbers, linear equations and inequalities and systems of linear equations.

This course serves solely as a prerequisite course.  Math 1100 does not satisfy any general education or essential studies requirement.

 

COURSE INFORMATION

EXAM DATES FOR SPRING 2024 BY NUMBER

  1. Monday, Jan. 22; 25 minute
  2. Wednesday, Feb. 21; 50 minutes
  3. Monday, March 18; 25 minutes
  4. Wednesday, April 3; 50 minutes

If you are unable to attend class on any exam day you must notify Dr. Eisenhart (269) 387-4117  before the exam, so that she can assist you in a timely manner.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE BY WEEK

    1. Jan. 8 through Jan. 12: Course info, classroom environment, sometimes always, order of operations, commutative property, and associative property
    2. Jan. 17 through Jan. 19: Sometimes vs always, equivalent expressions, and distributive property
    3. Jan. 22 through Jan. 26: Exam 1, expanding and factoring, percent change,and  growth and decay factors
    4.  Jan. 29 through Feb. 2: Multiply growth and decay problems, overall percent change, and more sometimes vs always
    5. Feb. 5 through Feb. 9: Find the past value of a growth/decay problem given the future value, create linear models to evaluate and predict, solve linear equations, and analyzing different strategies for solving equations
    6. Feb. 12 through Feb. 16: Solve linear equations continued, conditional/contradiction/identity, solve an equation for a given variable (literal equations), and create models and solve systems of equations in context
    7. Feb. 19 through Feb. 23: Solve systems of equations, Exam 2, and substitution vs elimination strategies 
    8. Feb. 26 through March 1: Systems of equations with no solutions or infinitely many solutions, linear functions, and Spirit day
    9. March 4 through March 8: Spring break
    10. March 11 through March 15: Practical meaning of coefficients and constants of three forms of a line, modeling lines from graphs, context and tables of value, and converting equations of a line into different forms: point-slope, slope-intercept, and standard form
    11. March 18 through March 22: Exam 3, modeling linear contexts and provide practical meanings for points, coefficients, and constants
    12. March 25 through March 29: Graph linear functions, discuss aspects of a graph needed for clarity, solve linear and nonlinear models graphically, and solve linear and non linear systems of equations graphically
    13. April 1 through April 5: Function notation, practical meaning of points given in function notation, Exam 4, create models using function notation, provide practical meaning of input and output values, evaluate and solve using function notation, and determine if a table of values could represent a linear function.
    14. April 8 through April 12:  Define integer exponents, simplify exponential expressions, given a linear or exponential context, create a table of values, given a linear or exponential context, create a model in function form
    15. April 15 through April 19: Given a context determine if it is linear, exponential or neither and given a table of values determine if it could represent a linear function, exponential function or neither
    16. April 22 through April 24: Final exams

    Monday, March 18 is the last day a student can process an officially withdrawal from a class to avoid a failing grade.

    ALGEBRA VIDEOS

    There are many online videos on Algebra I topics. As with anything viewed on the Web, one should first sift through and determine which information is of value and actually correct. The director of the Developmental Mathematics Program recommends Algebra I students view the Khan Academy videos for Pre-Algebra and Algebra I.