Hard Parts Day 65 Briefly: Period 1: Theyre attempting a new sort of problem just as theyre celebrating (well, most

of them) the conquering of an old problem. Period 2: Theyre working toward an understanding that there are reasonable and less reasonable ways of finding approximate rules, and using those rules to make predictions. Period 3: Theyre trying to develop an understanding of how changing parts of a basic equation change the graph. Period 5: Theyre trying to solve quadratic trig equations. CS: Theyre trying to get a bunch of skills having to do with Strings down. -Im just leaving a pretty difficult few days with Period 1, and yesterday seemed better. (Though Jake and Efraim are still pretty stuck, Ronnie and Spellman were absent, so I still only have 70% of the class on track. Blech.) Whats the lesson here? You need a little bit of hope to continue the slog. There needs to be confidence that youre being guided somewhere towards truth and a payoff. Some kids have the ability to slog through more confusion without a payoff, but everyone seeks that payoff. Make sure that these insights are being sprinkled along methodically. -Remind David B that he owes me two minutes. Period 1: Today youre practicing more of the stuff that youre getting pretty good at (writing equations), while beginning to tackle a new sort of problem. The new sort of problem is finding equations that satisfy two points. What makes this topic difficult? If you dont know what exactly a coordinate point is, then youll find this confounding. o So we need to check in on that. There needs to be a graphing problem that we talk about together. What exactly is being sought? Often thats difficult to explain, and its a bit difficult to understand the constraints of this problem. o Frame it as the inverse of an old question finding points that come from an equation. Can we go in the opposite direction?

Theres the desire for a nice, clean way to do this every time, but what do you want us to do, just Guess? And then you want to tell us not to guess? Whats going on here? o There needs to be more clarity about what it is that were aiming for here. Do whatever it is that you think you need to do to solve the problem

Pause: I need to clarify my teaching assumptions. Theres a shortcut. Why not give kids the shortcut? Well, they wouldnt remember it or its purpose. Its hard to position something as a shortcut. Yes, we would. I always remember things when theyre given in a clear series of steps. Oh, yeah? Then why cant you solve equations? Heres the justification: Being smart means not just knowing how to solve one particular problem, but figuring out how to use the tools that you have. You guys have the tools for solving this problem, you just dont know it yet. It takes time for your mind to organize itself, though, and the way that it does that is by working out. Doing something hard will force you to realize what exactly it is that youre learning, In short: The coach will tell you the moves, and give you comments on your technique. But to get good, you need to practice playing the game. The game is answering questions that are different from anything youve ever seen before. The only way to get good at that is by trying to answer questions that are different from anything youve ever seen before. Yeah, at the end of the day Ill always give you feedback about what was good and what wasnt with what you were doing. Lesson Plan: 1. Warm Up a. Practice with the stuff that theyre good at. b. I mean, except for the kids who arent good at that stuff yet. c. Lets give a problem with some tricky numbers. 2. Problem Statement a. You guys can go forwards, right? Equation Points. b. What about the other way? Points Equation? c. An easy example: (0, 0), (1, 5), (2, 10), (3, 15) d. A tougher example: (4, 13) e. A tougher example (4, 13), (9, 33) 3. Practice a. One point problems

b. Two point problems i. Gapless ii. Missing Steps iii. Write a procedure 4. Wrap Up a. Procedure? b. Reality Check Period 2: Today youre going to learn how to make predictions when youre not given a perfect set of data. Notes: CME has a nice touch, having kids up the mathematical complexity by finding the balance point, which is a good exercise for finding the mean. I like the dice problem from their Alg2 curriculum. I also like the idea that wed have a problem for which they wouldnt have such a strong intuition. There seem to be two components here: the idea that there are good enough rules, and how do you find them systematically. Hard Parts Yesterday the kidoos werent into it. My take is that they didnt see the constraints of the problem, and so found the exercise sort of foolish. The major skill needed in this lesson is finding the equation of a line, and that could remain a tripping point for people who are just getting the hang of this thing. My instructions for how to handle the dice experiment are a bit lousy. They need some working. (Add up the numbers that you roll? Probably just show an example.) Lesson Plan 1. Warm Up a. Practice finding equations from lines b. How about one where they have to guess c. How about one thats downward sloping d. Then, into the dice experiment 2. Dice Experiment a. Roll 1 die. Record what you roll b. Roll 2 dice. Add up all the numbers that you roll. (e.g. if you roll a 5 and a 6, record 11) c. Roll 3 dice. Same d. Keep on going until you see a pattern. e. What do you predict the sum of all the faces will be if you rolled 47 dice? 3. Another data set? (What data set???)

a. Copy the data from CMEs stuff b. Or from their feet and height c. Which of these equations is closest? d. It passes through the balance point e. Then figure out a reasonable slope. 4. Practice a. Give em a handout b. Maybe Arlington Algebra c. Discovering Algebra? 5. Wrap Up a. When could you use what you learned today? Period 3: Were trying to find out how to translate a graph around the plane. Specifically, a trig function, but well study every function. 1. Warm Up a. Evaluating Trig Values b. Graphing a circle of radius 1 c. Graph something else, like y = sqrt(x) d. Graph y = sqrt(x-2) 2. The initial observation a. Find an equation that fits this graph b. Find an equation that fits this graph c. The graphs are shifted to the right a bunch. The other is shifted down. 3. What are the rules? Why? 4. Practice a. Find reasonable equations for the graphs. Use a graphing calculator. 5. Wrap Up a. Trig Functions b. How do we smoosh this so it fits the moon pattern?