TJ Miller

Secondary Lesson Plan Template

Topic:
Understanding and Fluency of
the Unit Circle
LEARNING GOALS

Grade Level:
Algebra Two

Length of class:
50 minutes

Students will be more familiar with the unit circle.

Students will understand the relationship between angle measures in the
form of degrees and radians.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to label a unit circle with angle measures in the form
of degrees
Students will be able to label a unit circle with angle measures in the form
of radians.
Students will be able to examine and understand the
relationship/equivalency between radians and degrees.
Students will be able to use the Unit Circle and landmark angle measures
as a tool for estimating the measure of angles.
CONTENT
Unit Circle
Degrees
o Positive and Negative
Radians
o Positive and Negative
o Pi
o Pi/x
o cPi/x
c and x are
variables in this
case.
Quadrant

REASONING/SKILLS:
Identification of angle measures
in degrees
Identification of angle measures
in radians
Using the unit circle as a frame
of reference for angle measures
Identification of both positive
and negative angle measures
Estimation of where angle
measures lie among the unit
circle
Patterns among angle measures
in each quadrant and
throughout the circle as a
whole.

TJ Miller
STANDARDS
Extend the domain of trigonometric functions using the unit circle (F-TF.A)
Understand radian measure of an angle as the length of the arc on the
unit circle subtended by the angle. (F-TF.A.1) (DOK 1)
RESOURCES/MATERIALS NEEDED (What materials and resources will I
need?):
Lesson Plan
Blank Unit Circle handout for students
Elmoto show students where to fill things in on the circle as they follow
along
Angle measure cards (3 or more sets)each set with different difficulties.
Colored tape to make a unit circle on the floor
Exit Ticket
LEARNING PLAN (How will you organize student learning in this lesson?
LESSON PLAN
SEQUENCE &
PACING
1. Launch (510 minutes)

2. Unit Circle
Lesson (20
minutes)

3. Roll playing
activity (20
minutes if the
class is
shorter, up to
35 minutes if
the class is a
longer 90minute class
time)

ACTIVATE /ENGAGE/EXPLORE
Launch: Activate the students prior knowledge by
reviewing different facts about circles. Prompt students to
answer questions about these properties.
How many degrees are in a circle? Semicircle? What
about if we cut a semicircle in half to make a of a
circle?
What is pi? What is the number value assigned to Pi?
What do we use pi for in mathematics? How many pi
does it take to make a complete circle?
ACQUIRE/EXPLAIN
Use the discussion that has begun above to
introduce/review definitions and ideas to student such as
radians and the Unit Circle.
Begin a small lecture on the idea of a radians and how they
relate to the degrees in a circle.
Pass out student copies of a blank Unit Circle page and
have them fill theirs in as new facts are being told. Make
sure to show students which quadrant of the circle is which
and label it so that they can better describe where things
are.
Start by discussing the equivalency of pi and 180 degrees
and 2pi and 360 degrees. Then, prompt students with
questions so that they can discover the other equivalencies

TJ Miller
4. Exit Ticket

throughout the unit circle

What about halfway between 0 and 180 degrees?
How many degrees and radians is that?
Do the same for 30, 45, 60 degrees and pi/6, pi/4,
and pi/3 respectively, then continue on with the
other ratios in other quadrants (120 degrees, 135,
2pi/6, etc.) until the landmark points on the unit
circle are complete.
Ask students questions about negative angle measures as
well. Where along the unit circle would -30 degrees fall?
-45 degrees? -270 degrees? Etc. Where would -pi/6 be?
-pi? -5pi/7? etc.
Ask students do describe what patterns they see amongst
the unit circle and its angle measures. Ask them why they
think those patterns exist/where they are coming from.
Patterns to identify should be:
How the numerators of the radian measures in a
quadrant relate to those in the same quadrant and
also how they relate to those in other quadrants.
How the denominators of the radian measures in a
quadrant relate to those in the same quadrant and
also how they relate to those in other quadrants.
The fact that and negative angle measure will be the
same as the number it takes to add to 360 degrees
or 2pi. (Example, -30 degrees is in the same position
on the unit circle as 330 degrees)
APPLY/ELABORATE
Once students have their unit circle filled in, pass out 1
card to each student with a different angle measure written
on it (make sure there is an even mixture of degree
measures and radian measures). These cards should be
taken from an easier landmark stack of angle measure
cards.
Have students use these cards to work together and
organize themselves around a large scale unit circle that
has been formed on the floor in blue tape. The only values
that are pre-marked on the circle are 0/360 degrees (0/2pi
radians) and 180 degrees (pi radians)
Once students have organized themselves around the
circle, check their answers and see if they are in the correct
order, if they are not, prompt students to rearrange
themselves into the correct order using questioning Are
you sure these are all in the correct spot? How can you
use the people around you to determine if you are correct
or not? What other things can you use to determine if you
are correct?

TJ Miller
Retrieve the cards from students, shuffle them up, and
repeat this process as many times as necessary. (until
students can confidently choose where they should be
along the circle.)
After that, replace those angle measure cards with more
difficult numbers. These can include negative angle
measure and non- landmark angle measures such as 50
degrees, 1 radian, 2pi/2 radians, 200 degrees, etc.
ASSESS/EVALUATE
Students will be given an exit ticket of a blank Unit Circle.
They will be asked to plot some angle measures along the
circle without using the Unit Circle they filled in during class
as a reference. Some of these angle measures will be
landmarks and some of them will not.
How did you/How might you differentiate for student READINESS,
INTEREST, or LEARNING PROFILE in this lesson? Explain.
This is a lesson that can easily be split into more than one class period/can be
adapted for 90 minute blocks. If students are not understanding the material as
quickly as expected, more time can be spent explaining the relationship
between radians and degrees, as well as refreshing students on what actually
measuring an angle is.
More time can also be spent on the roll playing activity associated with this
lesson. Students can spend more time on the lower-difficulty angle measures if
they do not feel comfortable with the relationships. If students catch on quickly
to this lesson, adaptations can be made so that they progress to the highdifficulty angle measure cards sooner. Once they have done that, the class can
be split into two teams who race against each other to see who can do it the
quickest and most efficient.
What educational learning theories did you incorporate into this
project plan (e.g., Social Learning Theory, Scaffolding, Vygotskys,
Zone of Proximal Development, etc.) and how did you incorporate
them?
Students are first listening to a lecture by the teacher (More Knowledgeable
Other) where they access and build upon their prior knowledge (scaffolding).
They then participate in a class activity where they interact with their peers to
organize and classify numbers (social learning).