Day 11 - Answering Questions using Scatterplots

Again we continued to describe relationships. For the first page, we did the first graph together and the students finished up to graph 5.

I then stopped the class and we discussed when linear models may be unreliable:

We talked about reasons and then students finished the booklet. This was a very discussion style class and it went well. These students do well when working on their own or discussing topics, and less well when lessons are more lecture style.

Day 10 - Scatter Plots and Lines of Best Fit

We continued on today with the same kind of work from before Easter:

We worked through the first one together and the rest were for them to work through on their own. They finished it without trouble and I did mark it. I just gave a rough level. It was really well done. Next time, I will push forward. There were a few lessons I feel I could have combined to get through the material more quickly.

Day 09 - Introduction to Mathematical Models

I'm a little tired of boring teacher-centred lessons now, aren't you? So today we did Ball Bounce!

This activity was right before the Easter weekend and students had a lot of fun:

In the first bit, students were doing the measurements and had a couple strategies. One group took a video and tried to get the measurements that way, and others estimated just by watching. Once the measurements were done, all students did some good math:

For a day before a long weekend, I got a lot out of them. Marks for this were really good, so I was happy with the activity and the math that came with it.

Day 08 - Acute Triangle Assignment

I was actually away on this day, and so I needed something I could quickly pull together that was meaningful for students to do. So I actually pulled a grade 10 test from a long time ago on acute triangle Trigonometry and made it an assignment for this class! Sweet! (Yay being experienced means having lots of stuff you've made already!)

Writing about this late means that I can actually talk about how kids did, so that's beneficial! I of course had some students who did not submit it, but of those who did, they did very well. I would say the biggest area of struggle was doing all the work for page 3. Some solved only one part, instead of the whole triangle. I was happy that they were easily able to decide when to use the Sine Law and when to use the Cosine Law. I would have liked to play "Whose Law is it Anyway?" but due to many days where much of the class is missing for one thing or another, time is running short. I will have to be happy with what I am able to do!

Day 07 - The Cosine Law

What comes after the Sine Law? The Cosine Law!!

I started the class discussing the last question of the Sine Law homework where students had to decide whether or not they could use the Sine Law for a particular question. Then we discussed what you need to use the Sine Law. Then we were ready to get into the Cosine Law.

When I started this, I told them that if they only wanted to memorize one equation, they could memorize only the top equation. However, when I showed finding an angle both ways, most students decided that memorizing the second equation was worth it. (Though, I would like to point out, not all, so it was worth going through more than one solution).

I left students to work on the problems as their homework. Now that they know I am going to collect more, they did more. We did do problem #2 together. I wanted to talk about the angles and how the directions work.

Day 06 - The Sine Law

After Right triangles and unit conversion, it was time to review the Sine Law:

We did spend some time reviewing how to label the sides, why we could not use SOH-CAH-TOA or the Pythagorean Theorem and then just reviewed. They needed to practice it again.

This went smoothly. However, we are getting into the time of the year where students are getting lazy. So even though they had lots of time to work on this, they did not finish it. I am going to have to collect more! Sigh.

Day 05 - Converting Units

Sorry it has been a while folks! It turns out that midterm marks + badminton + 2 little kids at home = not much time left over! I don't know how Mary Bourassa does it! Anyway, let's start where I left off:

Students did very well on the right-angled triangle Trigonometry assignment. So today we changed directions a little bit before getting into non-right triangles, and did unit conversion:

This went very well as most of my students are in an SHSM program related to technology. The lesson went quickly and the students finished the work before leaving class. They were good at identifying when their answers were wrong because they had a good estimate in their heads what the answer *should* be. We will do more of this but for this cycle, this was all I needed.

Day 04 - Right Angled Triangle Trigonometry Assignment

Today students worked through an assignment:

Well, we discovered that students are not keeping up with work (which is not a surprise) and that now they needed some help to work through it. However, it wasn't so bad. It was good to stop here and do an assignment.

Day 3 - Solving Right Triangles

Today students solved triangles and word problems:

The hardest part of this lesson was the compass direction part in Example 4. Students got through it well enough. They are strong in this type of trigonometry and so this was not bad.

Because my students are all "tech" guys, I tried to make the word problems relate to what they would have seen in their tech and design classes. Tomorrow students will work through an assignment and so I will see exactly how well they understand it!

Day 2 - SOH-CAH-TOA

Today students reviewed SOH-CAH-TOA:

Students flew through this. They needed a couple reminders - i.e. how to use the calculators, how to deal with x when it is on the bottom of the fraction etc. However, there was nothing unexpected. I am happy they remembered so well from last year!