Today I subbed in a high school math class. It's in my first OC district. It's definitely worth doing "A Day in the Life" for this math class.
9:00 -- Today is an odd period day. This is the district where "first period" really means zero period -- and while this teacher did have first period last year, this year she doesn't. Thus I begin with third period -- which just so happens to be our favorite class, Geometry!
The students have a Go Formative to prepare for the upcoming test on Tuesday. It's the Chapter 8 Test -- and here I assume "Chapter 8" refers to the Glencoe text, since that's the text used in this district last year (unless they switched to something like APEX without my knowing).
Chapter 8 of the Glencoe text corresponds to Chapter 14 of the U of Chicago text, and so this chapter is on triangles and trig. Indeed, Glencoe goes beyond the U of Chicago, as it introduces the Laws of Sines and Cosines, which aren't usually introduced until at least Algebra II. (I blogged about the presence of these laws in Glencoe six years ago -- back when I tutored students who used this text.)
I do help a few students with some of the Go Formative questions. I'm surprised when I reach a simple trig question and the students don't recognize SOH-CAH-TOA -- apparently, this regular teacher chooses not to use that mnemonic.
For music, I sing the "Triangle Song" from Square One TV, since this is the triangle chapter. Despite this being a Geometry blog, I don't really have any songs in my repertoire from the second half of high school Geometry (except for yesterday's parody about volume and surface area). At least "Triangle Song" fits since it mentions an equilateral triangle (students are asked to find the area of an equilateral triangle on their Go Formative). Also, the fact that the sum of the angles is 180 degrees might come in handy (for example, when the Law of Sines is used in the ASA case).
Unfortunately, I don't get to any Law of Sines or Cosines problems today. I hope the students understand enough to be successful on Tuesday's test.
9:55 -- Third period leaves for break.
10:10 -- Fifth period arrives. This is an Algebra I class. There are also two student teachers who log into the Zoom for this class, which is a bit odd.
These students also have a Go Formative review, but their test is today, on the Laws of Exponents. I do one problem on the product rule, and I tell them to multiply the "big numbers" and then add the "little numbers" to answer it. I set up breakout rooms in Zoom for the review.
As for this period's songs, I begin with "U-N-I-T Rate! Rate! Rate!" since I originally had a second verse on the Laws of Exponents (back at the old charter school as part of the eighth grade curriculum). I follow it with "Solve It," my usual go-to song for Algebra I.
11:05 -- Fifth period ends. As it turns out, this teacher doesn't have a seventh period earlier (as her five periods are 2-6), and so this is basically conference period that leads into lunch.
1:00 -- Academic support begins.
2:15 -- Academic support ends, thus completing my day.
Some online students ask to leave as soon as the Algebra I quiz is over. I've seen teachers release online students early before -- I do confirm with the student teachers that this is allowed before I do so.
If the students have really achieved excellence on their test, then I don't mind releasing students early when they finish -- and indeed, it fits with this resolution to let them go early in that situation. What I don't want to see is students rushing through the quiz just to leave early. (It's something that I've thought about before the pandemic -- for example, if no cell phones are allowed during a test and I tell them that they can use phones right after the test, then will students rush the test just to get to their phones?)
Today on her Daily Epsilon on Math 2021, Rebecca Rapoport writes:
If all sides of an equiangular parallelogram are 5, what is its area?
Well, another name for "equiangular parallelogram" is a rectangle -- and since all sides are 5, this rectangle is in fact a square. Thus this question is really asking:
If the side of a square is 5, what is its area?
The answer to this question is 25 square units -- and of course, today's date is the 25th.
Lesson 11-6 of the U of Chicago text is called "Three-Dimensional Coordinates." In the modern Third Edition of the text, three-dimensional coordinates appear in Lesson 11-9.
I've decided to keep that activity from a few years ago and add a new Lesson 11-6 worksheet. The "Luck O' the Irish" actually fits in Chapter 11 on coordinate geometry, albeit in only two rather than three dimensions. If you wish, you can pretend parts of the graphs are in different planes and make it into a 3D lesson.
Ordinarily I don't post copyrighted material. But Cartesian Cartoons are so easy to find online that I see no harm in posting yet another copy of it. And besides, I've posted some of them before during years past. (The next pandemic-friendly activity is scheduled for tomorrow.)
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