SOLs Covered: SOL 8.15 & 8.16 Relations & Functions with Slope & Intercepts
Math Unit: 13 Relations & Functions
Daily Agenda: January 23-27, 2023
Upcoming Assessments: Take-Home Quiz 3.01 Relations & Functions (A-Fri. 1/27; B-Mon. 1/30; first grade of Q3); Winter VA SGA (B-Wed. 2/1; A-Thurs. 2/2); Q2 Benchmark Test (A-Tues. 2/7; B-Wed. 2/8)
Happy Friday, folks! I've got a benchmark review to make for next week, so I'll need to keep this update on the short-and-sweet side (hopefully!). Before the usual math happenings, I again just want to remind folks that the term ends next week and students have just a short few days to do what they can to improve upon their grades. All past work, assessment corrections, and extra credit must be turned in by Wednesday, Feb. 1 to be counted. At this point, there is only one more grade (this week's RB Edmentum grade, which will be updated on Monday) that will go into the gradebook for this term, so what you see on Tyler right now is pretty much what you can expect to see on the report card unless students complete any final tasks, so please help me by encouraging the kids to use this last opportunity to boost their grades!
As previously promised, we continued working with relations and functions this week, putting a little more emphasis on slope-intercept form (y=mx+b) as we progressed. The kids have been doing well with whole-group instruction, but they need lots of reminders when working individually to help keep them on track and not get tripped up. As I said last week, the quiz for this unit (which will be the first grade for the next term) is a take-home quiz, so if they get stuck while working at home, please remind them they can use their notes. You can also have them read this email (you can direct them to my class website to read it there) to get a few more reminders directly from me. First, we always start by looking at our graphs and function tables by looking for the y-intercept; it's the b in slope-intercept form and on a graph, you find that it's the spot the graphed line crosses the y-axis and on both a graph and table, it's where x is zero. Secondly, slope (m) is the change in y over the change in x; while there is an official formula, they can quickly find slope from the table as demonstrated in class (when given two ordered pairs, subtract the top y minus the bottom y and the top x minus the bottom x, then placing the results with Δy over the Δx (Δ = "the change in"). They can always send me emails with questions via Canvas or their school Gmail or ask the next class; part of why this quiz is going onto the next term is to allow plenty of time to check in and then do their second attempt as needed before it's added to a report card.
Well, that should cover the most important bits but as always, please feel free to email if you have any questions. I'm going to get back to my test review, but I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!