Viking Open Educational Resource Research Guide: Precalculus Report

Inspiration

When I first found out that the textbook we were using for the Precalculus class was $300 on Amazon, I was outraged.  I had heard about free online materials and the fact that some instructors have started using them.  I spent last winter break researching OER materials and found a couple that I really liked. My biggest challenge was editing the .pdf files available online.  Having spent countless hours learning to edit, modify and create new materials I learned the advantage of using OER was the freedom to arrange the topics in a way that flowed much better than in the conventional textbook that we previously used. I have changed the homework questions and added new ones as well, to make the homework more rigorous and challenging. The end product is a good mixture of mathematical topics presented in a format that is both sophisticated, yet easy for students to understand, and best of all, free to students.

Cost Savings

The new free textbook, which is uploaded in Canvas for the students as a .pdf file, replaces the textbook used prior, which now has a cost of $175 at our bookstore.

About Our Faculty Author:

Simone Nguyen a full-time professor in the Department of Mathematics, who has been with the college since 2000.  She has taught almost every mathematics course offered at LBCC. She is the 2018 recipient of the Distinguished OER Instructor Award.