Obligatory apology for rarity in posting goes here. The end of the soccer season finally allowed me to breath… for a day. Basketball workouts started almost immediately and I am still juggling 4 preps. The juggling has eased up a bit – my 8th grade computers class is a quarter-long class that has started the second rotation. That’s lightened my prep load, though just a bit.
For our standard “Algebra II” class, we use Discovering Advanced Algebra by Murdoch, Kamischke and Kamischke. I love this book. After a year of getting used to it and finding all the subtleties in the way the material is presented, I feel like I’m making almost all of those little connections.
The fourth chapter is on functions, transformations and the basic families of functions. The first section of the chapter is basically this:
4.1 Interpreting Graphs
– Graphing a story
– Relationship between an independent and dependent variable
– Identifying features of graphs by describing the above relationship
Instead of writing a bunch of vocab words on the board and doing “math book” problems (after 8 seconds, how high is the balloon?), I simply showed about 5 graphing stories:
Just a picture… Click to head over to the amazing GraphingStories.com
That was it. That was the entire section. I then spent 20 minutes discussing function notation and 5 minutes doing if “f(x) = 2x-4, then f(3) = ?” skill practice.
Bam. We delved deep into the major concept of a function and truly examined the relationship between an independent and dependent variable all in one class period.
Two closing thoughts:
1. This is one of the amazing results of Dan Meyer’s decision to take the “Graph a Story” textbook problem and put it on video. (Though the overlaying of the graph on the video is crucial as well).
2. What other concepts do textbooks take days to develop using the “old fashioned” ways that could be examined deeper and quicker through other media?
Prime Factors 
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