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!

Cycle 2 Day 1 - Pythagorean Theorem

And on to the next cycle! The geometry we are doing in this cycle is mostly trigonometry so we are going to start the cycle in this vein. The project's theme is being a Research Assistant and starting a lab. So they will have to help build it (and need to do some trigonometry and decide on an optimal shape and dimensions of things), determine proper dosage and how much of the drug is needed in various circumstances (data management and algebraic models), and decide what kind of loan to get and how to invest profits (personal finance).

Today we worked on the Pythagorean Theorem. They have been seeing this since grade 8, so this is very much a review. The mistakes that often get made with the Pythagorean Theorem are that students try to use it with non-right triangles as well as they tend to forget that the hypotenuse is always the "c" (or always the side by itself on the one side of the = sign). So to address this, I started with the following activity:

 I am hoping by starting with this, students got the idea that they have to be careful which side they sum the squares of the other two sides and also that they cannot use the Pythagorean Theorem with any triangle. I pulled it together by finishing the lesson with page 3 and students worked on page 4 to finish the class:

Students flew through this and really seemed to understand. In retrospect, I might in future combine this with a review of SOH-CAH-TOA. We'll see!

Day 24, 25 & 26 - Cycle Project

For the last few days students have been working on their Cycle Project. The theme was "First Job, First Home". It covered all the concepts that I covered in the course to date in a "culminating activity" kind of format. It was 3 booklets, so too big to post here, but if you want a copy, just send me a note!

The first day, students did not take well to it, even though they had been told about it. However, by day 2 and 3, they got into the groove and felt confident. From the work I have seen so far, it seems pretty well done, but I will give a final note when I have marked them all! I definitely felt better about administering this than tests I have done in the past with this type of class. It was more relaxed. It was a lot of work to make and put together because everything had to fit in the theme, but since I did the bulk of that work in the summer, my time now isn't too strained.

Day 22, 23 - Cycle Review

We are finally at the end of Cycle 1! Today we reviewed what we have covered to prepare for the first project. I made a Powerpoint Presentation with review questions, and students worked through them at the White Boards around the room. (Yes I know that the buzzword is "vertical non-permanent surfaces" but let's be real - these are white boards or blackboards! Geez. Anyway.) Students worked in pairs and on the harder questions, pairs got together.

This worked really well for about 2/3 of the class time. I think I needed to put a break in there and then try to get them to come back. Some students worked well the whole period, but others gave up. Having the students standing and working on stuff I could see definitely worked better than having students work at their desk, but working for an hour requires more concentration on math than they have yet.

I won't be posting for a while because this review will take a couple of days and Wednesday of this week I will be missing most of the class due to Heights Training for their SHSM certification. On this day the students who are here will be working on resubmitting work to improve their grades.  All the best folks!

Day 21 - Linear, Quadratic or Exponential?

Welcome back from March Break! I hope that everyone is happy and healthy, and also celebrated Pi Day.

Today I snuck some abstract math into my cycle by examining whether the relationships that we had been studying in finance (i.e. renting, annuities etc.) contained linear, quadratic or exponential growth:

This lesson was quite easy for the students. It was a fairly gentle way to bring them back from the March Break. Most of the students finished the work before the class was done:

This was the last lesson before this cycle is done. It was a really long cycle. I find the first cycle was long last semester as well when I taught grade 9 applied using spiraling because you have so much to cover to give the broad strokes of the course with a few specifics. I am not sure if this is always the case but I might try to shorten it next time a bit.

We will spend a few days on review (with one day where most of the class will be missing due to Heights Training) and then the students will work on the final project of this cycle.

Onward ho!

Day 20 - Renting vs. Owning

Today students thought about renting accommodations vs. buying their own place. We started with a think/pair/share:

They did *very* well with this. I did not need to add anything and was in fact surprised at how much they thought of. We are in the country so most of these students do not live in rental housing. From there, we delved a little deeper as a class:

This produced some more good discussion. Again, I was surprised with how much they came up with. We finished off with a little bit of homework:

This was not that challenging for the students. They were able to complete the work before they left for the most part. Since most students are gone tomorrow, this was, for them, the last day before March Break, so given that, it was a great class. Not really "mathy" but good discussions.

Remember to celebrate Pi Day on March 14, and have a good week next week. I will sign off until March 20.