Meagan Vickers

PBI – 10am

September 30, 2005

Lesson Plan 8

Title of Lesson: Safety and Preliminary Building

Date of Lesson: Day 16 of Unit

Length of lesson: 50 minutes

Description of the class: Pre-Calculus, regular or honors

TEKS addressed:

c2c: investigate identities graphically and verify them symbolically, including trigonometric identities

3. The student uses functions and their properties to model and solve real-life problems.

3d solve problems from physical situations using trigonometry, including the use of Law of Sines, Law of Cosines, and area formulas.

The Lesson:

Overview- This is the day that students have been waiting for: they finally get to build! However, before any construction can take place, students must be educated in safety and lab procedures and pass a safety quiz with 100% to ensure the classroom is free from accidents. Students must also sign a personal responsibility statement that will dictate the behavior expected of them throughout the building process. Groups of students will be able to take their preliminary drawings/sketches/templates that they have created throughout the unit and construct a sundial.

Performance/Learner Outcomes: Explore real-life applications of mathematical concepts, use technology to increase competence with specific topics. Build sundials to tell time in case of the event of a world-wide breakdown of watches.

Materials, Resources, supplies needed: pre-cut wood (determined by the students, in the shape of a circle for the base and a triangle for the gnomon). computers

Supplementary materials, handouts: safety quiz; possibly a safety video, if one can be found.

Five-E Organization

Teacher does: Student does:

Engage: Teacher shows old-fashioned safety video from archives online or in the library. Students will see this video as more of a joke than an actual expectation of behavior. Teacher can then explain the actual safety procedures that the students will be following while building their sundials, and take questions about anything students may be confused about. Teachers administer a short, 5 question quiz about safety procedures as well as handout personal statements that students will sign to hold them responsible for their actions. This section shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes as the students need ample time to being their sundial constructions.

Students watch the short video, enjoy the humor in it. Students take quiz, must pass with 100% before being able to start their sundial constructions. The longer it takes them to pass, the more time they are wasting. Class time is valuable, and students should make the best use of it they can.

Teacher does: Student does:

Explore: Once students pass the safety quiz and each sign the personal responsibility statements (expressing their promise to uphold lab rules and safety procedures), students may break into building groups and start working on their sundials. Teacher can walk around the room to assess the needs of students as well as answer any questions they may have.

Students already have a materials list that has been fulfilled by the shop class. Students also have their blueprints/sketches/templates/designs for their projects and will use them precisely to build their sundials. As they are working on their projects, students should take note of any problems they encounter, what worked for their group, any important data they might need to collect, and think about modifications that might be needed.

Evaluate –

Teacher is assessing students understanding, taking note of common questions among students, asking probing questions to get students to think more about the project.

Teacher does: Student does:

Explain: Once the students have been working on the project for most of the period, teachers should corral students to start cleaning up their mess with at least 10 minutes left in the period. Once everyone’s project has been placed in a specified location, the teacher should have the students engage in an informal discussion of things that went well that day, things they noticed that aren’t working out just as they had planned, and anything else they feel is relevant to their sundials thus far.

Students will clean up their mess and put away all objects related to their projects to continue working on the following day. Students will then return to their seats and discuss the aforementioned topics that will determine understanding, misconceptions, and positive outcomes of the sundials so far.

Evaluate

Teacher is assessing students understanding, taking note of common questions among students, asking probing questions to get students to think more about the project.

Teacher does: Student does:

Extend/Elaborate: For this particular day, the teacher has done all he/she can do and the students are basically just having a “work day.” After the discussion takes place at the end of class, the teacher can create a list of all the questions students asked and use them for a warm-up the following day, or for test questions. This is a good example of a student-based exercise/assessment.

Students might need to take home any information that requires revision on their sundials. If they had questions, students need to organize their thoughts and put them on paper to ask the next morning during the warm-up.