DAY 1:
Today in class our student teacher (Ms. Jenkins) introduced an activity from the MARS website that involves having students match graphs, tables and stories. (Activity linked here.) We are in the middle of our function unit in 8th grade and the students are struggling a bit. Taking a day (or two) to let them process some of the new things from last week, as well as how the different representations of a function go together, is a great idea!
Students were paired up with a degree partner. Each student was given a half-sheet of paper with a grid to help them keep track of their pairings. Each pair was given a set of graphs, tables & stories. The focus of day one is to match the stories and graphs.
Today in class our student teacher (Ms. Jenkins) introduced an activity from the MARS website that involves having students match graphs, tables and stories. (Activity linked here.) We are in the middle of our function unit in 8th grade and the students are struggling a bit. Taking a day (or two) to let them process some of the new things from last week, as well as how the different representations of a function go together, is a great idea!
Students were paired up with a degree partner. Each student was given a half-sheet of paper with a grid to help them keep track of their pairings. Each pair was given a set of graphs, tables & stories. The focus of day one is to match the stories and graphs.
Students were asked to come check with a teacher after every couple pairings. She highlighted the matches that were correct and sent them back to keep going until all matches were made between the stories and graphs. There is one graph that has a blank story. The students then needed to write a story that goes with a graph that had a "missing story". This was a place where we really caught misconceptions! The graphed increased and then decreased (y axis was distance from home) and many students wrote that the person was going up and hill and then back down.
At the end of day 1, or if pairs of students finished early, Ms. Jenkins had students write a detailed description about a single graph. This is in the activity from the MARS website. She chose to use the handout titled, Journey Home. She made a rubric (printed on labels that were 2 in by 4 in) that she plans to use to grade their stories about the Journey Home.
DAY 2:
After pairs of students had the graphs and stories matched from day 1, they were asked to add in the tables. We choose to switch up partners for day 2. (They were a bit rowdy on day 1.) Most partners got right to work and choose to look at the graphs to match the tables. Very few actually looked at the stories again. In years past the tables have taken a bit longer but this year, students seemed to match the tables fairly quickly. There were a few common errors, but overall, they did it with a higher success rate than they did matching the stories and graphs on day 1.
DAY 2:
After pairs of students had the graphs and stories matched from day 1, they were asked to add in the tables. We choose to switch up partners for day 2. (They were a bit rowdy on day 1.) Most partners got right to work and choose to look at the graphs to match the tables. Very few actually looked at the stories again. In years past the tables have taken a bit longer but this year, students seemed to match the tables fairly quickly. There were a few common errors, but overall, they did it with a higher success rate than they did matching the stories and graphs on day 1.