Last year, I didn’t get through all the chapters of the book because my students had a hard time moving on to new topics/lessons and therefore they needed more time to grasp concepts and not to mention they were also a testing group so that was also a factor in my timeline of teaching. Anyhow, at the hype of the game-app “Angry Birds”, a fellow teacher who taught Algebra used it to teach parabolas. I thought to myself, “What a hook!” Most students now have smart phones and that would be a great way to connect something relevant to them but also involving math concepts. It would be also an interesting topic of discussion.
The standards that would be used in that lesson aligned to common core would be as follows:
Content Standard(s)
- CCSS A-CED.1 Create equations and inequalities in one variable and use them to solve problems. Include equations arising from linear and quadratic functions, and simple rational and exponential functions.
- CCSS F-BF.1 Write a function that describes a relationship between two quantities.
- CCSS F-IF.4 For a function that models a relationship between two quantities, interpret key features of graphs and tables in terms of the quantities, and sketch graphs showing key features given a verbal description of the relationship. Key features include: intercepts; intervals where the function is increasing, decreasing, positive, or negative; relative maximums and minimums; symmetries; end behavior; and periodicity.
- CCSS F-IF.7a Graph linear and quadratic functions and show intercepts, maxima, and minima.
The essential question(s) that I would purpose to students:
- Where would the Angry Birds have hit the ground if they hadn’t crashed into anything on the way?
- These questions may be useful in helping students down the problem solving path:
- What is a guess that is too close?
- What is a guess that is too far?
- What is your best guess?
- What would be a way to help us have locations that are easier to communicate to each other?
- What are the coordinates for your best guesses?
- What information would do you need to figure this out?
- What factors may affect your answer’s accuracy?
I remember when I was taught this concept, I was given the formula and yet I had no real concept of what real situation I could connect it to. I remember having to either read word problems but never something that I was interested in.
I think something that would be valuable for my students is learning percent off, discounts and which deal is better. I know that in practicing for the HSA, questions like this did come up and my students had a difficult time comparing which deal was better. I think that this would essentially be something of value as my students become more independent and go shopping.
Last year, I had students cut out ads from the newspaper, gave them a budget and they had to work around it. It took a while to teach this, but I think that making this connection is important as this is something that they will need in their future. I am not too sure if it still is a standard in common core, I’ll have to check on that.
I have done a few project-based learning type of lessons in my class, such as Barbie Bungee and I think that went well as far as students grasping the concept of linear equations and would love to tweak it for fine tuning.
As far as my ideas, I think most of them appeal to me equally but I do struggle on my time frame of how long I should spend on a topic especially if my students aren’t grasping the concepts.
