Content and Task Decisions

Problem-Based Student Oriented Planning Template

Guiding Benchmark
Think about your students. Is this
learning goal new information? Do
they have the prior knowledge
necessary? Is this challenging?

RIGOR
What math skills and mathematical
practices will need to be
demonstrated to be successful with
this task?
How do I modify the task to provide
access for struggling or advanced
learners?

Real Life Connection

When would you use this skill?

Student Task

Problem Based Keep it

simple
Engages students in the
intended mathematics/learning
target (conceptual, pictorial,
abstract)
May have multiple solutions
Requires students to wrestle
with the main ideas

HSG.SRT.D.10: Prove the Laws of Sines and Cosines and use them to
solve problems.
Students will be able to use the Law of Cosines for non-right triangles
Skills and Modifications
Mathematical Practices
-Make sense of problems and persevere
Students will need a strong
in solving them
understanding of trigonometry as it
-Reason abstractly and quantitatively
relates to right triangles and a
-Construct viable arguments and
strong understanding of triangles.
critique the reasoning of others
The second page will be provided to -Model with mathematics
-Attend to precision
those who are struggling while
-Look for and make use of structure
those who are excelling will be
asked to calculate the remaining
angles to check their work.
Task connects to baseball but any situation where there are three points
that can be converted into a triangle and information for three parts exists
where at least one part is a side and the required information is missing.
Task is below.
Concrete: Students will create a picture of the baseball diamond, the path
of the ball and where it needs to travel.
Representational: Students will draw in parts they may be able to discover
or could possibly make the problem easier to do if they had.
Abstract: Students will begin to calculate the solution using equations they
know or can create.

Student-Oriented: Develop parameters, structure, and focus for the assignment.

Launch

Teaching Actions

Before Phase 5 10 minutes

Get students Mentally
Prepared
Be sure task is understood
Establish expectations

Explore
During Phase 15 20 minutes
How will you assess student progress
toward learning goals?
What questions will you ask to
scaffold learning?

Summary
After Phase 15 20 minutes
Solution Share: Math Talk
How will you document/record
student solutions?
How will you connect student
discoveries to the learning target?

Extension Ideas
What will children do after the
lesson? Opportunities that could
extend this activity.

Have two right triangles (one has two sides but an angle is in question
while the second has two sides and the third side is in question) on the
board. Have students begin by solving for the missing piece.

This will be a challenging task. Students will get 2-3 minutes on their own
prior to working in groups. While students are in groups, I will monitor to
make sure they stay on task and find accurate solutions. Questions to ask:
What do we know about Sine, Cosine, and Tangent? How can what we
know be used in this situation?
Students will turn in their task so that I can document their understanding
and see where any possible confusion may be. At this point, all students
will be given the second page which will initially be done in groups but
we, as a class, will go through after using the Socratic questioning strategy.
This will connect what they did to the Law of Cosines which is the
learning goal.
Create their own real world problem that requires Law of Cosines. Another
option would be to ask based on a professional baseball diamond what is
the furthest that a player might have to throw to get the ball to first base.

CCPS Mathematics Resource Team 2011

Law of Cosines Learning Task

During a baseball game an outfielder caught a ball hit to dead center field, 400 feet from home plate. If the
distance from home base to first base is 90 feet, how far does the outfielder have to throw the ball to get it to
first base?
1. Draw a picture of the problem above.

2. What information do we know? What do we not know? What could we find with what we
know?

Typically, you have solved triangles that are right triangles. This is a case where we do not have a right
triangle to solve. We know two sides and one included angle. The Law of Cosines can be applied in cases
where the triangle is not a right triangle. In the space below try to see if you can solve the problem with the
tools you currently have.

Consider the following triangle. In our problem we know b, a, and angle C. Follow these steps to derive a way
to solve for c knowing just that much
information.
3. Use the Pythagorean Theorem to
find c2 in terms of h, a and x.
Multiply as needed to get rid of any
parentheses.

4. Solve for b2. Look for an expression

in #3 that is equivalent to b2 and
replace it with b2.

5. Find Cos C and solve for x.

6. Replace x in your equation from #4 with your expression from #5 and simplify completely.

Your answer to #6 is one of three formulas that make up the Law of Cosines. Each of the formulas can be
derived in the same way you derived this one by working with each vertex and the other heights of the
triangle.
Law of Cosines
Let a, b, and c be the lengths of the legs of a triangle opposite angles A, B, and C. Then,
a2 = b2 + c2 2bccosA
b2 = a2 + c2 2accosB
c2 = a2 + b2 2abcosC
These formulas can be used to solve for unknown lengths and angles in a triangle.
7. Solve the baseball problem at the beginning of this task.