Law of Cosines Story Problems Lesson Plan

Cooperating Teacher Signature_________________

Nicholas Long Mr. Hlivko

October 5, 2016 Pre-Calculus, Periods 1 & 3

Specific Objective to Meet Goals

Students will be able to apply their previous understanding of the Law of Cosines to solve real
life word problems.
Students will be able to use bearings to draw the associated oblique triangle for word problems.

Common Core Standard: High School Geometry

(Similarity, Right Triangles, and Trigonometry HSG-SRT.D.11)
Understand and apply the Law of Sines and the Law of Cosines to find unknown measurements
in right and non-right triangles (e.g., surveying problems, resultant forces).

Motivational Techniques
Firstly, say the first Law of Cosines story problem out loud. After hearing this real life problem,
point out how everything they have been learning so far about the Law of Cosines is not
completely useless. Inform students how these story problems are real life applications of the
Law of Cosines.

Materials Needed
Promethean Board, packet of story problems, calculators. Students should bring their Law of
Cosines formula sheet and their binder with appropriate note-taking items.

Procedure for the Lesson

- Students enter classroom, exchange their phones for their calculators and find their seats. (2
minutes)
- Explain what today will entail. How students are now going to apply the Law of Cosines to
story problems just as they applied the Law of Sines to story problems previously. Explain the
motivational technique and answer any questions students might have. (5 minutes)
- Begin with the first example which should already be written on the board (example 8 in the
packet). Now draw the associated picture with all known parts labelled. Walk the students
through the problem and show all work. (5-10 minutes)
- Repeat this with example 9 and 3 from the packet, constantly having the students participate
and answer questions. (15 minutes)
- Write example 10 on the Promethean Board, but do not begin the problem. Have the students
work on this story problem on their own. Walk around the room and answer any questions as
 they work. Once it seems as if they have finished, do the example on the board, just as the
previous three. (10-15 minutes)

Academic Language
Law of Cosines, bearing, complementary angles.

Assessment Methods
To know whether students properly understand and apply the Law of Cosines in story problems,
while students are working on the last example, I will be walking around the room. I will pay
close attention to the work that each student does on their own in the notes. Another assessment
that I will be using will be even less formal but still rather effective. The amount of answers that
students contribute and how accurate the answers are will help to determine their understanding.

Evaluation of Field Experience Student’s Performance

This lesson went very well in my opinion, as well as in my cooperating teacher’s opinion. I had a
little bit of trouble using the promethean board, which I should be able to master with time. The
main difficulty I ran into, however, was that my lesson ended up being slightly faster than I had
expected. I had initially forgotten how first period, the class for which I taught my lesson first,
lasts for a whole hour, not just fifty minutes. Therefore I ended up having 15 minutes left over at
the end. Luckily I had more examples with me in the event that this would happen! Nonetheless,
with this first class, I thought that everything went smoothly. The students were able to apply the
Law of Cosines to story problems and showed very little difficulty when doing a problem on
their own. The next class I taught, however, had slightly more difficulty. Some students were not
as engaged with the lesson and many of the students struggled when let on their own to do the
final problem. However, they did as a whole agree that they felt more comfortable with the story
problems at the end of class. For the future I should think of a better way to engage students.