The lesson plan, "All in the
Family," is a great lesson that combines prior knowledge of geometric
terms and definitions to represent algebraic functions. Through using an online website as a companion to the lesson, the students are enabled to discover the relationships of a square and explore the uses of algebraic equations when they represent something that they can physically see.
The curriculum focused on identifying
different kinds of functions and comparing how the relationships of these
functions are different between the different families of functions. The
strategies used are a self discovery group work project, and a teacher centered
Q & A. I believe that the lesson also teaches students about the
coordinates that make up the function. It allows them to understand how the
numbers fall into the x and y axes and what those numbers represent.
This lesson requires that students use a
computer to access the website that this lesson uses. This lesson is easily
adaptable depending on class size and the amount of computers available. I
believe that students should also be given a graphing calculator. Using this
tool, they will be able to manipulate the graphs that they are deriving from
the points and further understand the lesson. These technologies are both
crucial to achieving the curriculum goals of this lesson. Without the computer
or graphing calculator, the students would be unable to truly “discover” these
equations and relationships the same way. The students would have to work with
graphs printed on paper or graph the points of each relationship on a graph and
discover what it would look like. Neither of these options give the same effect
as the lesson involving technology.
"All in the Family" lesson plan ananysis
I agree that students should be given a calculator for learning about coordinates. In almost every math class students are allowed to use their calculators, and are encouraged to do so because some math is time consuming to do by hand. By doing this lesson with calculators, students are more likely to be prepared for their future classes. Additionally, during tests I doubt that the students will be able to use the computer, but if they are able to do the work on the calculator it would provide them additional help. This could allow them to double check their work or see if they are doing the work wrong.
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