This is a replacement unit to facilitate the teaching and learning of right-angle triangle trigonometry. The students begin by ‘learning’ how to sail a boat and then engage with various aspects of sailing and as a result learn about the fundamental trigonometric ratios. The unit comes with pre-made ClassPad Geometry files that enable the students to sail virtual boats, collect data on their sailing and through this learn about trigonometric ratios. The unit includes traditional learning and problems as well as some not so traditional learning.

This replacement unit introduces algebraic models (linear and simple exponential) to describe change in the world around us. The fitting of models to bivariate data is approached via the underlying properties of constant additive or multiplicative change. The unit contains a wealth of data drawn from a range of aspects of the modern world. Extensive notes are provided on the use of ClassPad technology. A .vcp file contains all unit’s data in a Spreadsheet, and also as Statistics variables.

When studying quadratic functions/calculus, do too many of your students find ‘optimisation questions’ hard? Have you ever wondered why? The booklet you can download here is the unit of work that supports the ideas presented in a number of workshops during 2011 and 2012 that outlined why students find the ideas hard. Basically, traditional teaching-and-doing approaches fail to focus on what is really happening: the measurement on one dimension and the subsequent calculation of other dimensions. Also, algebraic simplification turns out to be the devil – the patterns in the symbols are lost and so generalisation is not ‘seen’! The approach in the booklet supports the idea of each student developing a calculation and then comparing and contrasting to it other’s calculations – it is in this that the symbolic patterns appear and the generalisation literally reveals itself.