Showing posts with label differentiation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label differentiation. Show all posts

Thursday 1 June 2017

Drawing Conclusions in Advanced Functions

The CN Tower was one image students could choose to recreate with the graphing
software Desmos.

Math has lots of applications, but you may not have known that drawing pictures was one of them.

A big part of truly understanding mathematical functions is understanding what they look like. How does an adjustment to a function affect how it looks on the page?

Our Grade 12 Advanced Functions classes recently got more familiar with visualizing functions by doing something you might not expect: drawing. Each student was challenged with replicating one of several existing sketches in the graphing software Desmos using functions alone. Students applied their knowledge of what each function looked like to get just the right series of lines and curves to create images from butterflies to the CN Tower.

“We used this as a fun assignment last year, and the students not only enjoyed it, but found it to be really valuable,” says Advanced Functions teacher Megan Clark. “We formalized the assignment this year as a great way to get students more comfortable with visualizing functions.”



One student chose this especially complex "extension" image for her project (and she
made sure she didn't miss any of those eyelashes!)


The project is the perfect lead-in to the class’s upcoming short culminating evaluation. Each student will create a roller coaster path, but this time they’ll do it algebraically.

As Megan explains, the drawing assignment also allowed students to group themselves by readiness. “Each student chose a ‘Level 3’ or ‘Level 4’ image to replicate,” she says. “They then had the option to add difficulty to their chosen picture based on their comfort level. For example, some students opted to add more complex functions to their pictures.”

No matter which image they tackled, students were excited to take on this new challenge. One student even affectionately named her function-elephant “Peanut.”

“Everyone was really into it!” Megan says.


This student even took the time to graph out her elephant's name.



Thursday 28 January 2016

Thinking Deeply About (And Along With) Hamlet

The combined ENG4U/ENG4UO course in
our flex classroom..takes advantage of flexible
groups and space.
It’s post-Winter Break for students in Grade 12 English, and that means it’s time to talk about Hamlet.  In both the university preparation (4U) and Advanced Placement (AP) streams, students are examining the language of Shakespeare’s most popular play. The focus of this unit is to think about the play’s big questions--who can we trust, what is justice, are we defined by our actions or by our intentions--while also working on close reading skills to more fully appreciate the intricacy of the language.

The combined ENG4U/ENG4UO course in our flex classroom, room 207, takes advantage of flexible groups and space with class discussions that allow for a range of opinions matching the number of students in the room. When examining questions of morality or conscience, like whether or not Claudius is a good king (not person), diversity of thought allows students to be challenged and confronted by other points of view. Recapping an act of the play via Twitter summary also sparks an unspoken creativity contest to see who is most masterful in their use of hashtags.

The flexible space also allows for differentiation in terms of level of challenge when performing a close text analysis on passages of the play. After a common review of literary devices and lesson on how to notice aspects of language in a text, the class splits into groups to learn how to effectively communicate about the passage. The AP students (as well as any students who opt in from the 4U class) examine a more intricate way to organize an essay, while the rest of the class gets to work applying a more traditional method to the complex ideas and language in front of them. In either option, the depth of thought expectation is the same, so all students must strive for the complexity and insight befitting Shakespeare’s most notorious thinker.

Caley Blyth
English Subject Team Leader

Stephanie Martino
English Teacher