Wednesday, May 22, 2013

If only all right triangles were this cute...

Hi, I'm teaching trig to my ("low" math group) 9th-graders, and loving it. We only had time for 1 day of trig lesson before we will have to concentrate on reviewing for the end-of-year test (after which we'll come back and do some outdoors trig/angles of elevation and depression type of stuff, leading into complicated trig word problems). The kids were awesome at basic trig! They learned how to apply sine, cosine, and tangent correctly and consistently in one 80-minute period. Rock stars, these kids. They use the tactile trick to figure out which side is opposite, adjacent, and hypotenuse, and then they use cross-multiplication to consistently and correctly solve for x. For now, since we're only learning the whole of right-triangle trig in one day, I am going to give them the acronym SOH-CAH-TOA on the exam and just require them to remember what the acronym stands for. Eventually, they'll have to memorize SOH-CAH-TOA, obviously.

Anyway, totally apropos, this totally cracked me up today.
Anyhow, this week is a killer. I keep trying to get ahead, but it seems impossible, as I am pulled in all directions as a teacher, a department chair, and a person soon to move across a big pond. I wonder when the next sigh of relief will come. Hopefully, there is one scheduled before July...

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