Assignment 11: Trigonometry and Derivatives

Week 13

 

Summary of your mid-semester reflections:

Thank you for the clear feedback you provided in the mid-semester reflections that you sent me last week.  Most of you said that you find it easier to learn the material from the class activities when we have a mixture of small group work and large class discussion.  You indicated that when you are working on the problems in your small groups you can solve the problems at a more comfortable pace, and the group work helps you to understand and learn the underlying concepts.  You also indicated that you find the whole class discussion following the group work helpful, because that is when you see the different ways that others have approached the same problems.  In the remaining weeks of the semester, I plan to use a combination of small group activities, whole class discussion, and short lectures to make sure that the underlying concepts are clear.

Almost everyone in the class indicated that the Web Work problem sets are very helpful, and I will continue to develop these problem sets and make them available.

 

Monday, [day 35]

·        Section 5.5: Trigonometric and Inverse Trigonometric Functions

o       Applications of trigonometry:  We will see two different ways to use trigonometry to measure the height of a large object such as a tree.  This will give us another opportunity to review basic right triangle trigonometry, the unit circle, and the two standard triangles.

o       Derivatives of trigonometric functions:  We know the derivatives of the sine and cosine functions.  We will find derivatives of the other four trigonometric functions.

o       Inverse trigonometric functions and their derivatives: This provides an opportunity to review two different strategies for calculating derivatives – implicit differentiation and differentiation of an inverse function.

 

Wednesday, [day 36]

·        Section 5.6: Summary of Methods of Calculating Derivatives

In this section, the authors summarize the various rules for calculating derivatives that we have been using up to now in this course.  This section is mainly a review of things we have already covered.

·        The Study Guide for Test #3 will be available on Wednesday afternoon.

 

Friday, [day 37]

·        Review for the test

Monday, [day 38]

·        Test #3

 

Wednesday before Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving Break begins at noon.)