Math had not been my strongsuit over the past couple years, I just couldn’t understand some of it for some reason, even though other classes came easy for me. Precalc 11 changed this. I was able to not only understand how the math works and why it is the way it is. I could think deeper about it and was able to find solutions to the problems, even if I had not completely learned how to do them yet. A good example of this would be trigonometry. This was one of the units last year as well and going into it I was worried that I would not understand it. I listened and learned just like any other unit and I was able to do very well and I felt like a whole different person. It was our last unit and though I had been doing well the whole class, the fact that it was trigonometry gave me a moment of realisation. I understand the math, and I am good at it. It is hard to describe in words but Precalc 11 has given me a general new outlook on math. Anything can be fun as long as you understand it.
Collaboration was a major thing that we did in precalc this year, which helped me understand the math more because it forced me to explain it in a way people can understand. I was also able to learn more about the learning styles of others in the class and I never felt embarrased to ask a question. Collaboration is not something I have done very much in past years but I am certainly happy that we did it this year. I understand why we do this collaboration and it could easily be on of the main reasons why I have done so well in the class so far. Collaboration helps you teach yourself and find understanding in your own way, I really enjoyed doing that this year.
The unit I liked the most was sequences and series, this may have been because of it being our first unit, but I think there is more to it than that. I did very well on sequences and series and it was something new and different. Sequences and Series helped me become more confident in math and made me feel successful. This unit was easy to understand for me and showed me how something so simple like adding all the numbers from 1-100 can take a few seconds to do. It felt real and math in the past has sometimes been hard to visualize.
Using online tools to help understand what we were learning was something we used a lot this year. I loved using desmos to get a visual understanding of a parabola and other graphs. Using websites like thatquiz and quizizz helped me to get quicker at analyising problems and answering questions quickly. These websites made math feel more like a game and that we were having fun rather than having to do a worksheet. Though the questions could sometimes be challenging, it helped us to remember certain things and made it easier to do other questions like them in the future.
Finally, my last favourite memory of PreCalc 11 would be understanding that we don’t need to use a calculator for everything and though it may be tempting, we are very powerful with math and can find ways of solving equations that are simple and easy to replicate. Having this power made me feel more in control of math and that I could do any question that we encountered in the class. Studying for the final wasn’t easy but I realised that I already knew how to do a lot of the questions and I had retained a lot of information about perfect squares of numbers and remebering times tables. Repitition was key here and because it wasn’t the center of attention, it didn’t feel like I was working toward nothing. We would use these values as tools to find an answer to an unrelated question. I am very happy with my progress in math this year and I can’t wait until next semester to do more.