Some professional (and artistic) development
I must admit that I signed up for the QLSMA Math MiniConference on a whim, with the added knowledge that it would be a great excuse to visit Anneke. However, I was pleasantly surprised. And now I'm going to attempt to consolidate all that I learned so I can eventually put it to use! The key note speakers had done research into bridging the divide between patterning and algebra. Now, their study focused more on elementary school students, but I could immediately see a connection to high school mathematics. This is what I took away from their methodology: - introduce a patterning concept by using an "input" "output" robot approach --> which is really the definition of a function! - stay away from table of values until students get the connection between a pattern, equation and the graph representation (it is meaningless and confusing otherwise) - get students to create patterns using pattern blocks, using the terms 1, 2, and 3 and then get other stude...