Online for the 2023-2024 School Year
Teacher: Ms. Henderson
Email: lhenderson22@gmail.com
First day of class: Monday, August 21, 2023 (course will open for introductory activities on Thursday, August 17, 2023)
Last day of class: One week after the AP Calculus BC Exam in May 2024
Course fee: $700.00 (“early bird special” of $650.00 if registered by June 30, 2023)
Enrollment eligibility:
This course covers only the four units of the AP Calculus BC curriculum and assumes the student has successfully completed one of the following:
- AP Calculus AB, OR
- a strong high school Calculus curriculum with topics and rigor comparable to the AP Calculus AB curriculum.
Students taking this class, therefore, must come with a strong knowledge of differential and integral Calculus. While topics from AP Calculus AB will be given to the student for self-review at the start of the course, no direct instruction on these topics will be provided. Some will again be reviewed as we prepare for the AP Calculus BC exam in May 2024. If applying for this course, it is strongly advisable that you review topics from AP Calculus AB this coming Summer 2023. (I can provide you with some suggestions.)
Course description:
AP Calculus BC covers much of a second semester of a college-level course in the Calculus and is the “continuation” of The College Board’s AP Calculus AB course. AP Calculus BC covers four units beyond the AP Calculus AB curriculum as prescribed by The College Board. These units focus on exploring advanced methods of integration as well as vectors, polar graphs, parametric equations, and polynomial approximations and series. Investigations are included throughout the course as enrichment and extension of the material required for the AP exam.
The content of the course is very theoretical, demanding, and requires you to have a solid background of the concepts covered in Algebra 1 and 2, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, Trigonometry, and AP Calculus AB (or a comparable Calculus course). Specific to taking AP Calculus as an online course, you will need to be self-motivated, self-disciplined, and willing to work at a consistent pace.
After completion of this course, you will be prepared to take the AP Calculus BC exam in May 2024. Those who score well (3, 4, 5) could receive advanced placement standing in their math level in college and/or credit hours towards graduation. The use of graphing calculators without a QWERTY board is permitted for use on the exam. Most TI graphing calculators including the TI-83, TI-84, and TI-89 graphing calculators, which do symbolic manipulation, will be allowed on the calculator portions of the exam. The exam will test your basic knowledge of the concepts in this course as well as applications of your knowledge to unique problems.
The purpose of this course, then, is two-fold. First, I strive to adequately prepare the student to enable him/her to pass the AP Calculus (BC) examination in May. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I strive to provide the student with a very solid and thorough understanding of single-variable Calculus through graphic, numeric, algebraic, and verbal representations.
To meet the requirements of the College Board Advanced Placement Program for Calculus BC, the following units will be covered this semester:
Unit 0: Review of AP Calculus AB topics (review problem sets, no lessons presented)
Unit 1: Advanced Methods of Integration
Unit 2: The Calculus of Polar and Parametric Curves
Unit 3: Vectors and Vector Functions
Unit 4: Sequences and Series
What to expect of the course:
Our course content will be housed in Canvas and all lessons and materials will be delivered via that platform. The first 7-8 weeks of the course will be given to a brief review of AP Calculus AB topics. These will be self-study-based with topics and assignments from the textbook. Each of the four BC units will be divided into individual lessons. Lessons will include written lessons (by me) and lots of videos, all of which were created by me or close colleagues of mine. Supplemental videos are always provided should you need further examples or explanations. Most lessons will take you one to two days to complete. As you go through each lesson, you are encouraged to take notes as you would in any face-to-face class and study the content of the lesson until you understand it. You should not attempt an assignment until you understand the concept. You should expect to spend 5-10 hours a week on the course material.
While there are no set meetings for the class, I will be providing you with due dates for your assignments so as to keep you on the necessary pace to be finished with the course content by early April. After that point, we will be reviewing and preparing for the AP Exam! As an online course, this is meant to be flexible so as to meet your personal time commitments, schedule, etc. That being said, it is expected that students will adhere to these due dates – extensions will be considered for extenuating circumstances. Weekly office hours will be held via Zoom on Tuesday nights, 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (Eastern time) starting on Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023. You are welcome to visit with me at that time to ask questions, engage in some extra practice I might have, or just to say “hello”! Otherwise, you are welcome to email me at any time for help and assistance. You will find that I typically respond to emails at night.
There will be homework assignments to complete out of our textbook for every lesson. These are not graded but are for your own instruction and benefit. It is expected you will complete these problems so that you can master the content. Worked solutions will be provided so that you can check your own answers. Textbook problems should take no more than 60 minutes per assignment.
Through each unit there will be a few graded assignments that must be submitted. These will be investigations, labs, problem sets, enrichment or cumulative exercises of some sort. Problem sets and quizzes often will be assigned to you in AP Classroom and DeltaMath. Each unit will end with a summative test, often administered as part non-calculator and part calculator-permitted … as the AP exam is administered. Your course grade simply is the accumulation of earned points against the total possible.
It is expected that students will sit for the AP Calculus BC Exam in May 2024 (date not yet published by The College Board). Students not taking the AP Exam will be required to take a final exam for our course.
Technical requirements:
- Computer or tablet device with high-speed internet access for accessing DeltaMath, AP Classroom, Canvas, and Zoom.
- Use of email.
- Graphing calculator – the course will be taught from the perspective of the TI-84 Plus series.
- Ability to PDF multiple pages of work into a single document (via app or scanner).
- Microphone and web camera capability for online tutorial/office hour sessions. Both will be mandatory for participation in these sessions.
- AP Classroom account (I will provide you with our join code)
- DeltaMath account (I will provide you with instructions for creating your free account)
Required textbook:
Calculus: Early Transcendentals Single Variable, 12th edition, by Howard Anton, Irl Bivens, and Stephen Davis.
- E-book text ISBN 978-1-119-77807-3
- If doing e-book rental, you can rent for one 120-day subscription and one 150-day subscriptions ($84.00 total on Wiley website) to start Aug. 21, 2023 and end May 11, 2024. You also could purchase the e-book outright for $112.50.
- Print textbook ISBN 978-1-119-79853-8
- If doing textbook rental, you will need to rent for two 130-day subscriptions ($96.00 total on Wiley website) to start Aug. 21, 2023 and end May 6, 2024. You also could purchase a loose-leaf copy of the book for $124.95.
- Either format is acceptable
- Print and E-book options might be available through other online vendors.
So how do you join our class?
Please complete the application linked in the above line. Applications will be reviewed by Ms. Henderson as they are submitted.
If you are accepted into the course, you will be directed to register and pay the tuition at the Pennsylvania Homeschoolers AP Online website online store, using one of their payment options.
About the instructor:
I am a seasoned mathematics and distance education professional with 30+ years experience in teaching mathematics. I have taught everything from 8th grade Algebra 1 through AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, and Discrete Mathematics. My love, though, lies with the Calculus! I have been blessed to teach AP Calculus AB since 1993 and AP Calculus BC since 2011.
I earned my B.S. in Mathematics from Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA and a M.Ed. in Secondary Mathematics Education from Widener University, Chester, PA. A native of the Philadelphia area, I taught for 16 years at an all-girls, college preparatory high school in Delaware where I served as Middle and Upper Schools Mathematics Department Chairman and taught Honors Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Honors Pre-Calculus, and AP Calculus AB. Moving to North Carolina for my husband’s job, I secured a teaching position with the North Carolina School of Science & Mathematics in their Distance Education & Extended Programs division. For 9 ½ years, I taught AP Calculus AB and AP Statistics via live interactive video conferencing to students all across North Carolina. I also taught AP Calculus BC as an online course and am thrilled to have the chance to do so again with PA Homeschoolers! As I developed a new-found love for the online teaching platform, I earned another M.Ed., this time in Instructional Technology from North Carolina State University. For two years I also served as an AP Calculus Consultant with the National Math and Science Initiative, facilitating training to AP Calculus teachers and students in Pennsylvania.
Since 2013, I have been honored to serve as a Reader with The College Board for the annual grading of the AP Calculus exams – both AB and BC. I love being able to provide my students with first-hand knowledge of how the exam are graded! I am certified in secondary mathematics teaching in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Outside of school, I spend a significant amount of time volunteering at both the local and national level with my sorority, Sigma Sigma Sigma, and with the National Panhellenic Conference, the advocacy organization for 26 inter/national social sororities. I love gardening, traveling, and the Jersey shore, and spending as much time as possible with my husband, friends, family, nieces, and nephew.