Monday, September 07, 2015

Trig Match Up Activity

My awesome coworker and I made up a trig matching activity. I know it's not a novel idea, but here is another resource for precalculus teachers to solidify angles in standard position. You can find the file HERE


 Via our internet math community, I learned that it's easier to leave one of the pages uncut (the pink sheet here), and then the students can place the matching cut up green and gold cards on the page. Before, I used to cut up all three, and then that took up too much space on the student tables. Thank you virtual PD friends for the great tip.

My buddy and I also decided to break up the teaching into 2 class periods with degrees one day and the dreaded radians along with their devilish friends, FRACTIONS (duhn DUHN duhhhhhhn) for the next day. Hopefully, this will allow the fraction/radian goodness to seep into their resisting minds more readily.

I didn't share the word document because it seems to mess up when you download it via box.net (or maybe I'm wrong). If you want the word document to play around with, send e-mail. 

Another thing I like about this is that we didn't use all special angles. We also didn't indicate which was up or down on the pink sheet, so that stumped some kids and they had to think and justify the direction. Yay math.

20 comments:

  1. This looks great!! I am always looking for some good things to help students love trig as much as I do! Awesome!

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  2. Thanks for this activity. I found your blog a few weeks ago, and it is been a great resource for Pre Calc activities for a new class I'm teaching this year. You also led me to the AP Calc Facebook group. Thanks again!

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  3. We also didn't indicate which was up or down on the pink sheet, so that stumped some kids and they had to think and justify the direction.
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  4. Anonymous11:01 PM

    I love this! Great thought not to use common angles and have some of the pictures upside-down; would really get the kids thinking beyond memorization into comprehension. Thanks for sharing!

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  5. I've been deeply contemplating whether or not to teach radians. About half my students could not even attempt to place 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 4/4 on a number line. Time is tight and I think leaving out radians can get students to be able to model with trig functions in real contexts more easily. Some of my students have completely shut down with radians or only had a procedural understanding despite many activities with manipulatives creating radians. A part of me feels like it's just wrong to not teach radians. Thoughts?

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:19 AM

      Hi Grantationnation. That's a tough one. I can't give a one size fits all answer because I haven't been around your students and your situation. My knee jerk reaction is that you have to teach radians. It's a trig given. But again, at what cost. Is there a way to scaffold the teaching? Like giving them pictures of a radian and its position and asking for the trig functions, if that's the concept you are going for. Or giving them a table of angles in degrees and their matching radian values and getting the kids to give the trig functions. Maybe you can also think about it in terms of that they will just benefit from more exposure to them even if it doesn't all stick right now. Anyway, again, these are my inexpert to your situation opinions.

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