Friday, June 11, 2010

Why Do We Learn About Cosine Functions? � The Quick and the Ed

Why Do We Learn About Cosine Functions? � The Quick and the Ed

Why Do We Learn About Cosine Functions?

A few years ago I was teaching the majesty of the cosine function to some students in a suburban Raleigh high school. The lesson was part of the widely dreaded trigonometry unit in a course titled “Advanced Functions and Modeling”—a fancy name for what was formerly referred to as Algebra III. Essentially, this course was for college-bound students who had completed Algebra II but did not wish to pursue Pre-Calculus yet. Most of the students in the class knew that they would not become future mathematicians or nuclear engineers, but they were, nonetheless, headed for some type of higher education, either at a four-year college or a community college.
Standing at the front of the classroom that day, armed with overhead projector sheets and dry erase markers, I

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