Day 4

Today we'll finish the MARS activity we started yesterday, looking at the connection between the tables of values, the graphs, and the verbal descriptions.

I'll use today's opener to again review slope-intercept form, see the screenshots below.

We'll then discuss one of the student's screencasts of last night's homework problem.

The lesson will continue with the MARS activity, matching the various tables of values to the graphs and verbal descriptions (slides, see the MARS activity for the tables of values we're using).

Today's homework will be to tie together the verbal description, the graph and the table of values, and again use a screencast to share their thinking about the problem.

My hope is that after today they are feeling fairly confident connecting descriptions to graphs to tables of values, and perhaps seeing the connection to rate of change and slope (although we'll make that more explicit in our next class, which is two days away because we don't meet on Thursdays).

Day 3

Today I want to continue exploring the relationship between two related variables, and how to sketch a graph given a verbal description. Today we'll focus on distance/time graphs by using this MARS activity.

I'm going to start with an opener that will hopefully remind them of what they already know about slope-intercept form of a linear equation. Again, in Formative, so I'll give you screenshots.

After discussing the opener, we will then view and discuss one of the screencasts they did for homework last night (the assumption being that at least a few of them were successful). We'll talk about the math in the problem, of course, but we'll also talk about problems anyone had with the screencast process and possible solutions.

We will then move on to the MARS task (outlined in the slides). The entire task is going to take one and a half to two class periods, so I'm anticipating getting through the "sharing posters" phase (bottom of page T-6 in the MARS pdf), then adding in the data tables tomorrow.

Their homework will be to complete the Journey to the Bus Stop activity, including recording and submitting a short screencast to describe their thinking. I again hope they will have the opportunity to start the homework in class and perhaps only have to do the screencast portion outside of class.