Orientation for College Algebra

This page contains links to Orientation Tasks and other Information for getting started.

This course is foundational to Trigonometry, Calculus, upper-division mathematics, and laboratory science.

I think the videos, linked, below, will get you rolling very nicely.

There are 4 Grade Categories

5% - E-Mail Settings - Cement our main line of communication for this course.
30% - WebAssign - Daily Work
30% - Written Work - Approximately one Assignment per week.
35% - Written Midterm and Final Open Dates: March 11th or 12th and May 11th or 12th.

For urgent, time-sensitive matters, call Me - 970-290-0550. I'm available 24/7.

I want you to use your D2L e-mail and my D2L e-mail for course-related correspondence. Using Classlist in D2L tells me what course you're in, so I will know what you're talking about and where to save your messages on the server. Warning: Make sure you hit the SAVE button. The video shows the Save button!
Using your D2L e-mail tool for course-related communication will be a huge help to me, keeping all my stuff in one place. This will help me serve you better.

"Start Strong" with WebAssign. This web page comes from the WebAssign folks at Cengage. It explains how to register for our course on their server.
Please, when you register, use your full first and last name, as they appear on the Classlist in D2L. If you use a maiden name or some made-up name, your work will not be recorded, and you will fail the course. I'm counting on the same name on WebAssign as I see on D2L and my roster. If I don't, I'll just kick you out as some stranger who sneaked in, somehow.
I think you'll be a lot better off using my help rather than their help, for the most part. They sometimes teach things in a way that will limit you, later. I avoid that, so that your foundations make the later work, a lot easier, faster, and more sound, in general. They're just trying to get you through one thing, in isolation. I'm coming from a bigger-picture perspective that has served most (not all) of my students well.
WebAssign is a great tool for online learning of concepts and basic skill-building. It's not enough, by itself, which is why there are weekly Written Assignments and two Written Tests. But there is instant feedback on your answers, and there is extensive built-in help on WebAssign, itself, and I have built an archive of videos and notes that show you how I would work every single exercise, and you can find the video for your particular question with about 2 clicks of the mouse, because of the way it's organized.

Each Week (approximately), you will submit a selection of problems from that week's topics. These questions will be graded by a human, with partial credit awarded. The Weekly Written Assignments are the finishing touch on the course, where you not only learn how to get answers, but you learn how to communicate your answers and the supporting work in a clear and convincing way.

This is the last grade category, and this video explains how to prepare for them. If you hit your back button on your browser, right now, you'll see links to Midterm and Final Test Preparations.
Midterm and Final Test are drawn from the type questions you encounter on WebAssign and especially on the Weekly Written Assignments.

More Resources:

Homework Extensions for Late Work on WebAssign.
- This explains how to submit an extension request for WebAssign Homework. If you're in a hurry, use the Automatic Extension Request for a 30% deduction. If you have some time, put in a Manual Extension Request, because I'm a lot nicer than WebAssign, especially in Chapter 1, where I rarely deduct any points for late work, tthe first month.
- For Written Homework, there's the "Late Edition" version of the Assignment on D2L. 50% deducted for Written Assignments that are late.