slope
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Introduction to Unit Cost (Unit Rate)
Unit rate (e.g., hamburger meat on sale for $2.39 per pound or you make $13 per hour) is an incredibly important topic in middle and high school. First, unit rates and unit costs are common in life. Second, in the Common Core State Standards math categories you can see that Ratios and Proportions (which includes…
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Introduction to Unit Rate using Unit Cost
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Rate of Change in Real Life
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Making Slope Less Complicated
Slope is the rate of change associated with a line. This is a challenging topic especially when presented in the context of a real life application like the one shown in the photo. The graphed function has different sections each with a respective slope. One aspect of slope problems that is challenging is the different…
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Introduction to Slope
Slope is one of the the most important topics in algebra and is often understood by students at a superficial level. I suggest introducing slope first by drawing upon prior knowledge and making the concept relevant (see photo above). This includes presenting the topic using multiple representations: the original real life situation, rates (see photo…
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Interpreting Slope Intercept
Slope is one of the most important topics covered in high school algebra yet it is one of the least understood concepts. I have two observations about this. First, slope is often introduced with the formula and not as a rate of change. Second, students intuitively understand slope as rate of change conceptually when presented…
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Intro to Slope as Rate of Change
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Chunking a Lesson
Chunky peanut butter means you there are pieces or chunks of peanuts. The peanut butter is broken into distinct parts. Chunking in teaching means breaking a concept or lesson into distinct, smaller parts. This makes it easier for students to process the lesson and the concept. They focus on less content at one time which…