I love trigonometry. It’s so logical and rule-driven. I can’t do proofs or any other math that requires creative solutions, but give me a set of rules, and I can do any exercise. I guess that’s why I loved programming so much. It was like a game where they give you all the rules in the beginning. There’s just no way to fail when you know the rules
If I were teaching trigonometry, I would love to stress exactly where the concepts come from. Like the fact that all the sine and cosine values are nothing but the Y and X coordinates, respectively, in a circle of radius 1.
I would also show them this nifty little chart to figure out the sin, cos, and tan of the notable angles:
(chart)
That’s the only way I remember the actual values. It’s not by heart, it’s just by writing out this table and just calculating from there.
I’d love to teach trig, if I do end up teaching Math.
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