Problem Description
In the cow problem we were given a 10ft. x 10ft. barn and a cow on a 100ft long rope and we were trying to find the area the cow could graze in.
When we were first introduced to this problem I didn't think it would take this many steps to figure it out. Mr. Carter told us that we were able to ask him any question about the problem. Once all the questions were answered, we were directed to try to come up with ideas on how we could possibly solve this problem. My group and I first tried to create a visual. |
Once we got a visual of the problem we continued coming up with ideas on how we could find the area. After discussing it with our groups we came together as a class and we found the first part of the problem.
The first part was finding out the "basics" we knew that the cow could travel to multiple sides of the barn with 90ft. of rope. We faced a challenge though, at the opposite side of the barn we that there was going to be a "dimple" shape. With that we knew that we were going to have to break down the circle into shapes to find the area. In order to solve this problem we were going to have to practice methods on how to figure it out. We practiced SOHCAHTOA, finding the angle of a triangle, radicals, pythagorean etc. It took us about 2 weeks to solve a part of the problem. Then we left the cow problem for about a week, when we came back we reviewed over the problem again and continued it.
The cow problem was a whole lot of steps. It felt good to finally finish such long, complicated math problem. At first I was always confused on the order of the steps. Although I can't memorize all the steps, I am able to recognize on why we do the steps we do. This problem really pushed my thinking and also pushed me out of my comfort zone, the last time I used SOHCAHTOA was in freshmen year so I had to try to remember on ho to use it after such a long time. The quiz really helped me with collaboration with my group mates I made sure to study on how to solve the cow problem the night before doing the group quiz helped my group work together and develop a better understanding of the problem. If I would grade myself in this unit I would grade myself either a B or C because I know that I should've asked more questions when I was lost or I could've gone to tutoring more often . I could've contributed more on finding new ideas on how to solve this problem. I have to learn how to go outside my comfort zone and to not be afraid to ask questions when i'm lost. Overall I still challenged myself and still tried to understand it now, each time that I went over it helped me better understand this problem.
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