Week 8 Reflections - Thanks for a great activity, Zach & Steve!

I finally got to my trig verification unit and I was super excited to use the activity my colleagues (from Twitter!) shared about a few months ago.  (See the post here)

A few notes about how I did it:

• Student had already done simple verification problems and had worked with identities for about a week before today.  The night before, they watched a short intro video where I went over different strategies and approaches to consider.  They did not see any problems worked out, just the intro.
• I made 2 copies of each identity, and I made one of my own so I had 6 identities, 12 folders. I have 6 tables so that's why I made an extra one.
• I also gave each group a stack of sticky notes and on the left side of the verification, they had to write the identity used or the algebraic step needed to move to the next part.
• Once they think they had it right, they called me over and I either approved them, gave them a few tips/suggestions (for example, if their sticky notes didn't use the proper vocab or terminology needed), or if they didn't have it right I gave them some tips and went to the next table.  Once approved, they snapped a picture of it (for accountability purposes; one person in each group had to email me their set of 6 pictures), marked their group off on the board (I forgot to take a picture of this, but I just made a table with their group names on the left and the problem colors on the top and they got to put an "x" in the box when they were done - it made it a fun competition, too), and then they traded out for a new color.

Things to change for next year:

• There were 2 identities that were much shorter than the others, similar to the ones we had done at the beginning of the unit.  I want to change those to make them longer/harder like the rest.
• I purposely did not really give many directions.  I just told them they had six "trig challenges" to do and told them to get a folder.  I only had one group all day that didn't really understand what to do.  I was hoping for them to notice the "verify" that would start the problem and then all the equals signs and the fact that the right side never changed.  I don't think I will give detailed directions next year, just check in with the groups individually and make sure they are on the right track.

Overall thoughts

• The students seemed to love it.  We now have 3 more days of just practice with these before they have their assessment.  I'm looking forward to how it will go tomorrow in class.
• This was the most engaging, interactive, and active 54 minutes we've had in a while. The period FLEW by!

A few pictures from the day...