Quote of the day (midway through the lesson):
"Wait, so we've been using functions our entire lives?!"
2. Warm-Up: see yesterday's post for the Vending Machine questions.
- This was excellent for kids to work out the idea that there can be repeated outputs, just each input must have it's own output. For example, when more than one row of the vending machine has M&Ms.
- Students struggled at first, but with more thought and then eventually small group talks, came up with ideas. Most was solidified during class discussion.
- Warning! Not all students have made purchases from a vending machine. Make sure to have students share what happens BEFORE asking students to answer the questions.
- Students added to: What is a function? How does looking at patterns relate to functions? and What strategies can I use to identify patterns?
- This should have been done after Breaking the Code. Kids were already too sophisticated in their answers, and did not have a chance to build on knowledge.
4. ISN - page 29
- Kids cut out examples of 8 functions/non-functions, then on page 29 separated the page into functions/non functions.
- No one glued until we went over each one as a class
- Once class discussion was done and we glued them in, students highlighted what prevented the non-functions from being a function.
- IMPORTANT- the samples included graphs and the kids have not learned the vertical line test. Several students happened to show the vertical line test as the reason one of the graphs was not a function. This happened in both classes. I used the document camera to share these images with the class, leading to why that works and formally introduced the VLT.