Objectives: To focus on graphs and think about the decisions they will have to make each time they graph something - which is pretty often in this course!
Preliminaries/Lead-In: Not a whole lot of lead in necessary other than to emphasize that they are not expected to know what the graph looks like - they just need to make their best guess. Probably keep them off of Google here!
Suggested Procedures: (Paula) I had 20 minutes in class on Friday before they had to take the concept exam, so I handed this out and had them work on it. 1.a. and 1.b individually and then 1.c discussing in groups. I had to push them to take 1.c. seriously. I gave them some more explicit instructions orally because they were unsure what they were supposed to write about there. I said something like: "Look at the graphs drawn by people around you - look for differences - in shape, in scaling the axes, etc. Then explain to each other what you were thinking. Write about those differences. I did not send them home with Part II. I will pass that one out on Monday. But I would like to start class by having a few volunteers describe their predicted curves. I want to get the class to start using some common language for describing the shapes of different curves (and to begin to be conscious of that language).
(Mairead) I might have them do this in class at the beginning of class on Monday and instead send them home with the end of the part II activity that evening. I will have them work individually on parts a and b and then have them discuss part c.
Wrap-Up/Take-Away: This leads right into the next part of this activity - the main things to emphasize would be what information they decided was needed on their graph - how they labeled axis etc. And also reasons for why they drew the curve they drew.
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