This series is the culmination of many years of teaching experience with the graphing calculator. The books were written from the beginning for use with the graphing calculator. Throughout the text, the authors emphasize the power of technology but provide numerous warnings of its limitations: they stress that only through understanding the mathematical concepts can students fully appreciate the power of graphing calculators and use technology appropriately. Additionally, the authors consistently use the same four-step process when introducing the different classes of functions. This allows students to easily make connections between graphs of functions and their associated equations and inequalities.
John Hornsby is a native of New Roads, Louisiana and a lifetime resident of the Pelican State. He has lived a dream, loving his profession of mathematics education since the day he decided to become a teacher as a freshman at Louisiana State University in 1967. After graduating from L.S.U. and Southeastern Louisiana University, he spent 23 years teaching in Louisiana high schools and the University of New Orleans. In 1997 he decided to devote his efforts to full-time authoring of college and university textbooks. He is eternally grateful to Marge Lial, who gave him the opportunity to join her in her series of successful textbooks. His first book was published in 1990, and has coauthored over 100 editions of textbooks ranging from beginning algebra through precalculus. His current publisher is Pearson Education.
John's professional interests include the history of mathematics, incorporating graphing calculators into the precalculus curriculum, and sharing the beauty of mathematics through his series of talks, "Math Class Goes to Hollywood." These talks include scenes from movies and television that provide mathematics-education moments. Some are good, some are bad, and some are really ugly, but they all provide an opportunity to learn about mathematics.
His lifelong love affair with mathematics authoring and teaching has inspired his personalized Louisiana automobile license plates, which read "MATHBKS" and "ALGEBRA". And whenever he has the opportunity, he tells students what the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics coined some years back: Do Math, and You Can Do Anything.
