Putting a New Spin on Things

There’s a tendency in math education to teach trigonometric functions late and in fragmentary ways. Typically, students first meet sine and cosine in “triangle trig” and don’t encounter their relationship to the unit circle until grade 11. In last week’s workshop our younger students had their first meeting with sin and cos in driving a point around the unit circle. And they seemed to catch on to that quickly. That’s part of our “just show me how to do it” philosophy.

We started with a simple animation of a spinning stick, then added path tracing and movement of either the end points or the center points of the stick to create different kinds of images. Students did a remarkable job of using trig functions to create imaginative animations.

We’ve continued learning over the past few weeks about how best to organize breakout rooms in Zoom, and how to make sure that even in larger groups students are getting the support that they need. To organize breakout rooms in our “wandering” format, we need to make sure that the activities in each breakout room are distinct enough that they can be done in any order without losing their appeal.

The chat in Zoom calls is a tool we’re working with to try and make sure that student needs are being met as well as to build community within the RabbitMath summer workshops. Many students either don’t have a microphone and camera or are simply more comfortable with those things off. The chat is a valuable tool for us to use to engage students who might not want to speak up on mic. We want students to feel engaged, and for them to be involved in more than just the math, and that can be a challenge in an online environment. We’ve had breakout rooms at the start of each workshop for the past few weeks where students can chat and check in with each other, and this week we left some time at the end of the workshop for students to chat (on mic or in text) in the larger group.

This past week has also involved some thinking about the focus of our website and how we can improve its function. The website has, so far, been geared primarily to teachers looking for resources. We’re thinking about how we can add interactive modules that students can work through on their own, either as part of a class activity or for their own interest, more easily. We already have one such module here, and we’re going to add more in the coming weeks.

There’s also likely to be some reorganizing of the website by topic rather that just by grade, since many of our problems are low-floor high-ceiling and may be suitable for multiple grades. The workshops have given us some perspective about how well students can rise to a learning occasion!

Peter Taylor Quote of the Week: “They’re not coming to learn, they’re coming to play…and the learning happens.”