Unit 2 in Precalculus begins with a review of what makes a relation a function or not. We began with an open middle problem. First students use the given numbers (only once) to make all three of the sets into functions, then they start again, making sure that all three sets are not functions. Great thinking happened with this...they may feel like they understand the definition of a function, but this made them really think about its application. This was another goodie from Sarah Carter's blog Math = Love.
As we went through parent functions, I found this card sort from the
Partially Derivative blog. This was a great first practice with identifying parent functions and determining which transformations had happened to each of the graphs and how that effected the equation of the graph.
Then we went onto this parent function card sort from
Mrs. E Teaches Math. This card sort not only asked them to identify the parent function, but also the domain and range, whether it was even/odd/neither, and its symmetry. I added in another page of cards to have students match the end behavior of the graph as well. Here is a
link to those extra cards.
We also did a question stack to practice evaluating functions. No link for this one, since I used homework questions from the curriculum I use. I love these question stacks for the self checking value as well as the value in getting students working together to figure them out.
Part way through Unit 2, we had Grandparents day. In class, I had many of my students' grandparents present and regular class was not possible. We started our 30 minutes together by working on this
Desmos Marble Slide. It was a fun way to practice the transformations that we had been doing with parent functions, this time with a focus on parabolas. Then we moved onto an activity from Jo Boaler called
Pennies and Paper clips. I made the checkerboards above for each student/grandparent team to work on. There were great discussions going on between students and their grandparents! This is
the link to the checkerboards I made.
One of the days in the unit, I printed out several homework questions from the curriculum I use as well as some questions from our textbook. I taped them around the room and had students move around the room in pairs, trying to solve each of the questions. I feel like students stay more engaged and alert when they are moving around.
We finished up the unit with another question stack that had students practice composition of functions.
One last note...I actually did several Desmos activities through this unit. I loved doing them in class, and after going remote in the Spring, I loved Desmos even more. As the teacher I have a view that allows me to see what each student is doing. Here are links to my favorite Unit 2 Desmos activities (besides the one we did on Grandparents' Day):
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