Newport RI 41 29

Question of the week: (due next class) 

The town of Newport, RI is located at approximately 41 degrees 29 minutes North.  This is the latitude of Newport, RI.

Use this information to determine

a) the decimal degrees of Newport

b) how many miles Newport is from the equator (nearest mile) and

c) the angle (in radians) a turn would it be to measure from the core of the Earth from the equator up to Newport’s latitude. 

You may need to do some digging to see if you can find conversions from “latitude” to actual miles.

EVERYBODY is expected to do this on paper and hand it in next time we meet. 

The first three students to post an answer in the comments section (just answer one part in the comments section of this blog) and explain in a short sentence how they got the number will receive their HW credit AND a homework pass or reduced HW assignment for the upcoming quarter.

  Quarter One Reflection

In our classroom management plan and on the quarter one pacing guide, I mentioned a goal of having over “80% above 80” above on each assessment.  This means for our 20 student class, 16 scored above an 80%.   

This happened for C-period on Friday 3.1/3.2 quiz and nearly happened for D-period (one student off).    Great job!  

Since this helped your scores, I put it in for the 1^st quarter grades.  (HW grades are not in yet and nothing will be final until after Tuesday on icue, don't obsess about checking).

Looking forward

 We are just getting started in Chapter 3, which is the “real trig.”  We will be continuing on with section 3.3 but also following up with some of the things I found out in the pre-test (that Geometry one).  Most people understand similar triangle material (a foundation of trigonometry) but enough students did not understand straight forward “SOH CAH TOA” problems that I need to build that into our lessons this week.  If you do understand this (more than half of us) please help out those around you when this comes up again.

 Quarter 2 Changes

While watching the Patriot game and checking the Ch. 2 homeworks, it is clear to me we have some very strong leaders with HW, some in the middle who are doing it but not always getting it, and a few who don’t routinely do HW.  One change I am making for next quarter is to let my leaders lead more.  If all students (100%) check in with homework each day with those around you, your scores (and more importantly your understanding) will go up.  I wil be speaking with my “leaders” and I will be collecting daily Homework from those students who scored very low during quarter one for homework.  If it is still not getting done we will have mandatory “overtime”, coming in after school.

I plan on switching up the seats a little bit too, if you have a preference in the part of the room or know you want to be near someone you work well with, shoot me an email at gsteppen@mpsri.net before Tuesday. 

Now go determine that partial simple distance around part of the earth problem.  Be sure to cite any sources you have about conversions, radius of the Earth or anything.

Mr. Steppen