Top 10 Important Things from this Semester (SMARTBoard Notebook File)

The Sunday School Teacher in Church yesterday made a Top 10 activity with bible stories.  He put 10 poster sized papers on the wall that had information on it.  The posters were folded to hide the info.  He then asked us to guess his top 10 miracles of Jesus.  People guessed and then he revealed any that were accurately given.  He had made a key so that when people guessed, he could just look at his key and find the right poster to reveal.  I decided that was a pretty cool idea and modified it for my class.  I'm using it for my final exam review sessions.  You can see a few of the slides below.  I had the students work with their partner to come up with a few guesses so in case they got called, they would be ready.  Feel free to download and edit as much or as little as you like.

My Top 10 Precalculus Trig Ideas for the Semester (SMART Notebook File)

PDF of My Top 10 Precalculus Trig Ideas for the Semester

Top 10 SMART Notebook File (empty...ready to fill in)

Opening Slide

Slide Number 1

Graphing Polar Coordinates with your FEET. Move and Learn!

This video demonstrates students plotting polar coordinates by actually moving their feet. It's just another way to move and learn. When you physically plot the point with your feet it cements the process in your mind. Use blue masking tape on the ground and plot some points with your students. It's as easy as that. 

The students are plotting the point (3, 150 degrees) on the ground.  They found out another way to plot it was (3, -210 degrees)

I would you encourage you to buy some blue tape and plot ANY type of point or graph with FEET!  You will be amazed at the retention that your students will have.

Want more move and learn?  www.learningreadinesspe.com 

Reverse Your Questions: Energizing Teaching Tools

 

Pick a question that you asked today in class.  Try to reverse the question.  Make the answer the question and the question the answer.  You might notice the question might be a lot more open ended?  Is it a higher level question than your original?    So next time you are making a worksheet, reverse a few of your questions and mix them in along side some of your original type questions.  Then see if your worksheet has a better mix of conceptual and procedural questions.  

Examples
Geometry:  Original Question:  What is the area of this parallelogram given the height is 4 cm and the base is 10 cm?  Reversed Question:  Find the base and height of a parallelogram given the area is 40 square cm.

Algebra:  Original Question:  Solve this equation   5x + 10 = 30  Reversed Question:  Find a two step equation that has a solution of  x = 4.

Precalculus:  Original Question:  What is sin (30 degrees)?  Reversed Question:  Sin of what degree value(s)  give an answer of .5?

PLEASE COMMENT WITH YOUR OWN IDEAS.

The page above is out of the book called "Energizing Teaching Tools"  More information is located at the website www.energizingteachingtools.com or at the blog post How to Measure Student Engagement?

Desmos Online Calculator with SLIDERS

I love the Desmos Online Calculator. 

 It is easy to use.

Easy to Share.

You can Embed it. 

You can make sliders with it.

Give it a try.

I

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/8y0kuud1zr

Desmo Website
Library of Sliders

Here is a cool site full of examples from a class using Desmos
http://padlet.com/wall/rvkica26qi
Here is one of those examples.  Click on it to make it interactive.

Partner/Group Work: The Student Engagement Wheel and Energizing Teaching Tools

This is one of the "spokes" of the Student Engagement Wheel.  The Student Engagement Wheel is show below.  Use the Student Engagement Wheel to help you measure the student engagement in your class.  

These are pages out of the book called "Energizing Teaching Tools"  More information is located at the website www.energizingteachingtools.com or at the blog post How to Measure Student Engagement?

Have Students Teach the Class: The Student Engagement Wheel

This is one of the "spokes" of the Student Engagement Wheel.  The Student Engagement Wheel is show below.  Use the Student Engagement Wheel to help you measure the student engagement in your class.  

These are pages out of the book called "Energizing Teaching Tools"  More information is located at the website www.energizingteachingtools.com or at the blog post How to Measure Student Engagement?

Triangle Challenge: The Ambiguous Case Explored using Pipe Cleaners

I have always had trouble with teaching the Ambiguous Case.  It seemed that whatever I did, the explanation was not good enough.  The kids came out of my class with their heads exploding with all the things they had to remember.  A couple colleagues and I created a hands-on activity that really explores the heart of the ambiguous case and the Law of Sines SSA example.  After going through this lesson, I really feel like the students had a grasp on the ambiguous case conceptually.  My work is not finished, because I have to now finish the procedural process and we should be good..  The first video is the explanation of the original challenge.  The second and third videos where students explain their partial and full answers.

Triangle Challenge Rules and Guidelines   SMARTBoard Notebook Lesson      PDF Lesson
1.  Use one pipe cleaner that is 8 inches long (light colored) and put it as side two

2.  Angle A is exactly 30 degrees.
3.  Side one is a second pipe cleaner (darker color) and starts at 12 inches long.  It can be shortened by 1 inch increments.
4.  Create as many triangles as you can using the above restrictions.
5.  Hint:  There are more than 10 solutions.

The Challenge

A Student's Partial Solution

A Student's Full Solution

An interesting Solution

PIPE CLEANERS ARE A MUST FOR PRECALCULUS CLASS! See another blog post using pipe cleaners click here.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SMARTBOARD LESSON  (use must have notebook software to view this)

CLICK HERE FOR THE PDF LESSON 

Happy Ambiguous Case Days ahead!!
Best,
Dave