Trig Functions: Desmos

As always, I was able to knock this lesson out of the park... thanks to Desmos! It is so easy to check the students' progress through the teacher dashboard. And if you want, you can project this screen so that students can see if they are correct with their card sorts. What was my teaching life like before Desmos? Not like this!

Because I do so many activities in class, my students have gotten in the habit of asking, "What are we going to do today?". And not in the annoying teenage/eye-roll fashion, but in the I'm pretty excited about coming to math class fashion. But they weren't always this way. Trust me, I begin on day 1 doing some sort of an activity in all of my classes. I want them to know that I expect all students to be engaged 100% during class time. Unfortunately, most of my learners did not get this excitement (that's what I'm calling it anyway) in their previous math classes.

Back to today... my Desmos activity. I created this based solely on graphing trig functions with a unit circle review tucked in at the end. The trig functions do not have phase shift included- that is saved for Math 4, but include amplitude, period, and vertical shift.

The students had a great time completing this task! I had them paired up, but they were not limited to discussion with only their partner. Students could help peers in other groups; and they did. It was amazing to watch the community of learners have rich conversations about math 😊

If you are interested in trying this Desmos activity in your classroom, feel free to click here.

I hope your students have as much fun as mine did!

~SSB

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