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0 items - £0.00 0 items - £0.00Solving problems with non-right-angled triangles involves multiple areas of mathematics ranging from complex formulae to angles in a triangle and on a straight line.
As the GCSE mathematics curriculum increasingly challenges students to solve multiple-step problems, students need to understand how to prove, apply, and link the various formulae associated with non-right-angled triangles.
There are three ways of teaching students how to derive the Sine, Cosine and Area rules.
I begin the topic of solving problems with non-right-angled triangles with the Sine Rule.
At the start of the lesson, students arrange a jumbled up derivation using right-angled trigonometry.
In the main teaching phase, we work through a series of problems involving missing angles and lengths.
The plenary is more challenging as students need to apply various angle properties to have a matching tip and side.
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After the Sine Rule we progress on to deriving and using the Cosine Rule to calculate unknown lengths. The start of the lesson is another jumbled up proof for the students to complete.
When teaching the derivation, most students can identify the a2 = b2 + c2 (-2bcCosA) as related to Pythagoras’ Theorem. The development phase teaches students how to substitute known values into the formula.
As learning progresses, students are challenged to combine the Sine and Cosine Rules within a single problem.
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In this lesson, students find an unknown angle in a triangle when all the lengths are known. We start with another jumbled up proof then quickly move on to sketching problems given as written descriptions.
Using mini-whiteboards to sketch their diagrams helps students to visualise the correct information.
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This is the final lesson on the topic. Students apply both the Sine and Cosine rules to solve a range of problems involving the area of a triangle.
At the start, students learn how to find the area of a triangle and later, as learning progresses, they use the area to calculate a missing angle or length.
Exam questions often include the area of a triangle in the non-calculator paper as Sin 30 can be worked out precisely without the need for a calculator.
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Students can struggle to solve problems that involve multiple formulae as they do not take the time to devise a strategy. Therefore, I encourage students to take a minute or so to sketch a flowchart that will break the problem down into smaller, more manageable steps.
When the students have come up with a strategy, we discuss identifying which formula to use with the following prompts.
When a problem is given without a diagram, students find it challenging to visualise what they are being asked to calculate, which is why an accurate sketch is essential.
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