Welcome to MM212! Unit 1 Seminar

MM212 Unit 1 Seminar Agenda Welcome and Syllabus Review Classifying Numbers Operations with Real Numbers Arithmetic and Calculators Division and ZERO Exponents Order of Operations

There are several announcements and documents in DocShare. These items contain all sorts of things - what to do if you don’t have a textbook, where to go for extra help, the syllabus, etc. PLEASE take a look at them. They change term to term as I add things to them based on suggestions and questions I get from my students. If you can not find the answer to a question you have … PLEASE ME … I will either answer your question or refer you to the announcement/document containing your answer. Do NOT get offended if I send you to an announcement/document … one of our goals this term is help you become an independent learner. Me referring you to where the information is located is part of the process.

Syllabus Please read the syllabus which is the same whether you downloaded it from Doc Sharing or read it under Course Home: Syllabus. Key things include attendance requirements, due dates and late policies, showing your work in your Project assignments, doing your own work, and plagiarism. There has been an increase in the amount of plagiarism … YES EVEN IN A MATH COURSE. You need to be aware of the consequences. If you are not sure if you are about to plagiarize something … send me an and ASK ME!

Seminar Although the seminar component is not graded, you will gain valuable information by your attendance. You will gain the most out of seminar by: showing up on time, staying in the seminar until the end, staying on topic, and participating. By participating, I mean asking questions, staying on topic, and answering questions. Notice I did not mention anything about answering questions correctly. I want you to try to answer ALL the questions I ask … even if you are not 100% of an answer, give us what you got, tell us where you got stuck or confused. If you have a question … ASK … do not tell us you have a question, JUST ASK. I may not answer it right away BUT I WILL ANSWER IT!

SEMINAR (continued) Have your textbook, something to write with, something to write on, and your calculator with you at seminar! We only have 60 minutes in seminar per week … there is no way we can cover every single concept (this is true for my face to face classes too). I will typically cover the basics on topics I have seen students struggle with. Listen closely to what I just said … this means you will have a responsibility for picking up the rest of the material during the unit on your own utilizing ALL the resources available to you (textbook, discussion boards, MML, etc).

Classifying Numbers Like so many things in our world … numbers can be classified MANY different ways. There are two specific classifications I want to look at tonight.

RATIONAL NUMBERS: To test if a number is a rational number, there are three things that must be true (not one or two of the things BUT ALL THREE). –The number must be able to be written as a fraction (whose denominator ≠ 0) –This fraction must be able to be converted to a decimal number –This decimal number TERMINATES or REPEATS

IRRATIONAL NUMBERS: The definition of an irrational number is a number that is NOT RATIONAL. Another way to put this is –The number must be able to written as a fraction (whose denominator ≠ 0) –This fraction must be able to be converted to a decimal number –This decimal number is NONTERMINATION or NONREPEATING

Operations with Real Numbers The ADDITIVE INVERSE of a term is its OPPOSITE. ALL numbers have additive inverses. Two numbers are additive inverses if their sum is equal to zero. The ABSOLUTE VALUE of a number describes the distance a number is from zero on the number line.

Arithmetic and Calculators Calculators are VERY VERY SMART and they are VERY VERY OBEDIENT … they will do exactly what we ask them to and they will never get it wrong.

Division and the number ZERO THREE TYPES –0 in the numerator (dividend) only = 0 –0 in the denominator (divisor) only = UNDEFINED –0 in both the numerator and denominator = INDETERMINATE (or cannot be determined)

EXPONENTS How many times you multiply a number times itself … this never changes … it is true for numbers, letters, number-letters, polynomials … everything!

SQUARE ROOTS The square root of a number is the value that you can multiply times itself to get the original number It is the opposite arithmetic of exponents (specifically of squaring a number)

ORDER OF OPERATIONS PEMDAS P: Grouping Symbols –( ), { }, fraction bars, radicals (like the square root symbol, absolute value | |. –We will ALWAYS do the arithmetic inside the grouping symbol first

ORDER OF OPERATIONS PEMDAS E: Exponents: We will always perform arithmetic of exponents next.

ORDER OF OPERATIONS PEMDAS MD: Multiplication/Division –Perform these as they occur from left to right. Do not first do all multiplication and then come back for division. They are equal-level operations

ORDER OF OPERATIONS PEMDAS AS: Addition/Subtraction –By now, this is all you have left to do. –Perform these as they occur from left to right. (JUST LIKE multiplication/division)