Wrapping up Chapter 6 - Test on Friday

This week we will be finishing the equation sections of Chapter 6 and preparing for the Chapter Test.  The results from last weeks quiz were pretty good.  The class averages were around 80%.  Some students are having trouble with the proofs on the back side and there are still some errors popping up when simplifying many of the tangent formulas.

Be prepped to hand in the last 3 homeworks (6.4-6.5) on Tuesday and be pretty thorough about checking your solutions in class as we are not having another quiz before the Test.   The Chapter Review assignment will be worth 20 credits and graded on accuracy.

Below are the assingments from the google document:  For the full assignment sheet click on https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vUohN90Jrh5DBIpLOPXEy6FgyR6yl_DvtYm4eR5uC7g/edit

6.5a	Trig Eq. Ineq. Lesson a	6.5a  314/2-16all	/5
6.5b	Trig Eq/Ineq. Lessonb	6.5b  315/35-43 odd,47     Assignments   6.4-6.5 checked 3/27/12	/5
6.6	Trig Eq./Inequalities in Quadratic Form	321/1-9 all, 17-19,34-36 [Practice]	/10
6R	Review	326/1-14 all,challenge 17-19 327/6,1113,16,20,23	/10 Accuracy

   Chapter 6 Test on Friday

Course Selection and Pi Day thoughts

What an amazing Pi Day!  At the end of the day, I saw SG gift his Math for America slinky over to IM and really that is what the spirit of Pi Day is all about.  What goes around comes around at 3.14 times the diameter no less.

Course Selections for Juniors
Many of you should strongly consider taking AP Calculus next year or just calculus based on your interest and courseload.  The incentive of taking the AP exam and possibly getting college credits really gives you a step up for college.

Similarly, I would say you should consider taking a Physics class.  My understanding is that completion of the General Physics course can earn you up to 8 credits at URI and many other colleges.  It is just a nice follow up course to Trigonometry too.

I will have limited email access the weekend, but feel free to email me if you have questions.  In general, if you are maintaining an A or solid B and consistently doing HW you should consider AP Calculus.

Good luck tomorrow and be nice to the sub.  You basically should be putting your recent HW into your folders with scores, taking out most of the old assignments (except tests) and then taking your quiz and handing it to him.  Calculators are not needed for this exam.

Week of 3/12/12 - More Identities and some Trigonometric Equations

Last Week
Based on last week's quiz results, we got off to a great start on Chapter 6.  We were well above our goal of 80% or more getting a B or better on the quiz for both classes.  The only room for improvement was with the tangent sum problem, just the final step of rationalizing the denominator.  Thanks to students who posted to the blog last week.  Everyone who posted may skip the 6.2 HW.  If you already did the 6.2 HW, we will figure out a different reward.  Section 6.2 is not a major emphasis, but there may be a question or two that will pop onto a quiz or the Chapter test. 

On the Horizon
Pi Day! on Wednesday.  This week we will work on the Double Angle and Half-Angle Identitities and transition into some Trigonometric Equation solving.

For our next class
We previewed section 6.3 and you should be reading pgs. 297-300.  The best thing to do before your next class would be to focus on these problems:

HW 6.3a 302/7-10 [Practice] and Class Exercises 302/1,3,5,12,14   
These are all double angle problems.  In class Friday, I said to focus on the double angles, and these are your best bet.
Question #12 will be the biggest challenge.

We will address both the double angle and half-angle identities next class.

One Pi Day Tribute Idea
Break out a new paper "pi" plate and create colorful unit circle with just the "pi/12" and "pi/8" angles and their multiples (which are not our memorized 30, 45, 60, 90 angles).  You will find that many of this week's problems involve those 15-degree and 22.5-degree angles.  Or you could draw the familiar 30, 45, 60, 90 mutliples and just color the pi/12 and pi/8 multiples that are not co-terminal with the familar angles.

Maybe the blog followers who read this and bring in a prepared pi plate will earn a reduced HW reward.  It has to be accurate, colorful, and done before your first class this week.  Spread the word for the non-followers.

Previewing Trigonometric Identities and using our Textbook

General
This week we will be starting a new Trigonometric Identity Chapter which will involve deriving some key angle formulas and applying them to find exact values.  The early part of the chapter will involve a lot of memorizing and applying some relatively long identities and you will really need to be sure you have mastered much of the material from Chapter 3 (working with the unit circle, definition of all the trig functions and their reciprocals etc.)  To start off the week I want to see who is following this blog and who is actively reading their textbook and involve some students in actually creating the weekly assignment sheet and responding to some questions.

Three Key Things

• I had mentioned to some D-period students that since they had completed their after test assignment more thoroughly than others, they may get an extra credit opportunity.  That opportunity is now if you go to the Ch. 6 draft assignment sheet and replace the ???? with the written objectives (find in your textbook) or names of the identities (find in textbook).  Each student to fill in an objective or key identity will be exempt from part of a future homework.  Access the draft assignment sheet by clicking the link below and it should let you make edits.   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vUohN90Jrh5DBIpLOPXEy6FgyR6yl_DvtYm4eR5uC7g/edit
• Secondly, for anyone who wants to answer any of the questions below by posting a comment to this blog, you may also receive reduced homework in the near future if you answer accurately.  [D- or C-Period:  Only one response per question, check comments before replying]
• The assignment sheet is a "working assignment sheet" some of the problem sets may change but not by much and we are actually starting out with 6.2 which is not on the assignment sheet but will be announced in class.  Our first quiz for this Chapter will probably be Friday Day3.

Read through the Ch. 6 introduction and respond to these key questions:
1)  Describe what "dead reckoning" is for ship navigation and explain how you think this may have changed given more current technologies.

2)  How is a ship navigation angle reading convention different than the angle convention we use in Trigonometry class.

3)  Describe what a "knot" in terms of sailing navigation and provide a little history by doing some online research as to where the measurement of "knots" came from.

4)  What is a sextant and how is it used?

5)   What are the similarities and differences between the cos (A+/-B) and sin (A+/-B) Identities.

Good navigating has its rewards.  If you are posting, be sure to state the question # you are replying to.