Categories
Law of Sines Trigonometric Functions

Law of Sines Mistake

LOS Mistake

My new favorite game is trying to classify math mistakes. (See: Classifying Math Mistakes)

Right now, I see three big categories of mistakes:

  1. Mistakes Due To Limited Applicability of Models
  2. Mistakes Due To Applying Properties of a Familiar Model in an Less Familiar Situation
  3. Mistakes Due to Quickly Associating Something In Place Of Another

I think this is pretty clearly an example of the third category. The student’s brain was working hard, and they swapped the 10 and the x.

These sorts of mistakes are interesting to me because I think a lot of teachers see these and say, “Oy, this student thinks that you can just swap out the x with the angle.” Or others would say, “Oy, this student has no conceptual understanding of trigonometry.”

Nah. This kid needs more practice with the Law of Sines so that you’ve got enough brain power available to pay attention to all the moving parts while you’re trying to solve the problem.

There’s something else that’s interesting about these associational errors, and it’s about the associations that students make. Isn’t it interesting that the x*sin(10) is more familiar to this student than 10*sin(x)? Maybe this also points to the need for more practice that mixes up missing angle and missing sides Law of Sines problems?

Categories
Trig Identities Trigonometric Functions

Verifying a Trig Identity

Torres

Why did this student think that this verified the identity?

(Thanks Michelle!)

Categories
Pythagorean Theorem Right Triangles Similarity, Right Triangles and Trigonometry Trigonometry

30/60/90 Mistakes

Right Triangle Quiz Responses

 

This is fairly representative of the class’ work. What would your next step be with this class?

Categories
Exact Values of Trig Functions Trigonometric Functions

If sin(x)/cos(x) = 3/5, then 1/cos(x) = 1/5.

Photo (1)

 

The submitter asks: What would you write as feedback here? What would actually help this kid?

I ask: What’s the role of written feedback, more generally?

(Thanks again, Tina!)

Categories
Trig Identities Trigonometric Functions

Trig Identities Unteach Functions

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Hypothesis: Proving trig identities unteaches functions.

After all, thinking of these as functions really just gets in the way, so all of our sensible students just treat these functions like variables.

(Thanks, Tina!)

Categories
Fractions Trigonometric Functions Trigonometry

“How do we get kids to stop and think when the cognitive load is higher?”

Photo1

 

Tina reflects:

“Kids seem to forget their skills when the level is increased. They revert back to intuition like “subtract numerators, subtract denominators” when faced with trig functions, but as soon as I ask “how do you subtract fractions?” they immediately recall “common denominators.” How do we get them to stop and think when the cognitive load is higher?”

That’s a great question.

Categories
Exact Values of Trig Functions Trigonometric Functions

cos[arctan(5/7)]…

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What’s up with this cool work?

via Tina

Categories
Exact Values of Trig Functions Trigonometric Functions

The Fundamental Mistake of Trigonometry

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Categories
Feedback Trig Identities Trigonometric Functions

Trig Identities are just really hard to prove

photo (5)

 

What’s going on here? Tell a story of how this kid wrote this stuff?

Thanks to Jonathan Newman for the submission!

Categories
Distance Between Points Geometry Trigonometric Functions Trigonometry

Estimating cosine ( + Distance Bonus Mistake! )

IMG_2656

 

What does this response reveal about this student’s understanding of the basic trig functions?

(Bonus! What’s up with that response for distance? Can you explain why that mistake is a tempting one to make?)