What you can do to help yourself succeed in trigonometry?

1. Attend each class for the entire time of the class.  Come to class excited and ready to learn.

2. When you are reading the text, don’t just read.  Stop and think.  The more deeply you force your brain to think, the better chance you have of learning and remembering.  Do the examples yourself on paper.  If there are any steps you cannot understand, bring your efforts in for clarification.

3. “Odd numbered” problems have answers in the back of the text.  You need to verify that you properly solved each problem.  Remember, the answer is NOT the goal.  The process that leads directly to the answer IS the goal.  If you cannot achieve the answer in the book, bring your attempts to class so you and I can find where the error occurred.  This discovery will help your understanding and learning.

4. Learn concepts rather than memorize particular problem solutions.  The more you understand the less you need to memorize.

5. The methods and styles taught in this class are designed to minimize the opportunity for an error.  Do your work in exactly the same way as illustrated in class.  This may be difficult at first, especially if the method of solution is different than you had encountered in a previous class.  All work will be graded according to the styles and standards as presented in class.

6. Rework any problems missed on an exam on paper different than the original exam.  If you are unable to successfully complete any problem, bring your original exam and all attempts at solution to class to show me.  We will resolve any issues!

7. Make friends of your fellow students.  Work with them in the Math Lab.  Talk with them.  Explain to them.  It is not uncommon for another point of view to see something different and that difference might be exactly what makes the topic clear for you.

8. Should you hire a private tutor?  Probably not.  Generally tutors are hired not to tutor the subject but to enforce a dedicated, uninterrupted time to practice a subject.  Since you are paying for the tutor’s time, you will not want to waste your money on idle chatting.

   1. The better tutors are not sympathetic to whining about how hard you think a concept is or about how you should have earned 4 points on a problem instead of only 2.  Their job includes convincing their client that the client must be one who actually does all the work.  Learning is an active endeavor not a passive activity.

   2. Some tutors try to help by either showing you how they do a particular problem or by telling you each step to take.  This looks good but is not very effective.  The best tutors will ask you more questions than you ask them.  They should ask you "Why did you do that?", "How is this different (or similar) to another problem", "What does this mean?"  Their responses to your answers are the actual tutoring.