Lesson: Investigating Position and Velocity Graphs, Quadratics and Derivatives

Class: Honors Calculus (Juniors and Seniors) Teacher: Mr. Goff and Ms. Schildhauer
Date: Thursday, October 10, 2016
Knowledge About Students:
Calculus: Students in this course have many different backgrounds as well. There are 13 students in
this class, but many different ability levels. For example, one student is completely in over his head,
because he has not developed good enough background skills to complete the more challenging skills.
However, this student is willing to try hard, and challenge himself. In addition, another student, has
pretty severe anxiety issues. She, however, on a general day is fine, but she expects perfection. So,
when she received a bad grade on her test, she immediately has to regroup and figure out how to
improve her grade. Luckily, she understands the main concepts, so her mistakes seem small and
fixable. Overall, the students are very quiet and it can tend to take some time to pull out the
information from them.
Standards: What are the content standards addressed in this lesson?
(as a student intern, I was not able to gain access to the curriculum)
What are the practice or process standards that you will highlight in this lesson? (May not be
applicable to your content area.)
Math Practice 1: (Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them) Students will be working
with a real world problem which will allow the students to develop ideas and persevere to solve the
problem. This will allow them to conceptualize velocity and position graphs as well as finding
derivatives of quadratics.
Math Practice 2: (Reason abstractly and quantitatively) The will have to think a bit out of the box and
be able to create their own quadratic which will force them to use their prior knowledge. The students
will also be analyzing position graphs so in order to do the activity they will need to understand the
concept of velocity and position!
Math Practice 3: (Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others) Since students will
be working in groups, there will be many ideas for the students to have to reason out in order to find
the maximal area. Thus, they will have to give good justifications on why their way creates the largest
area versus other students ideas.
Math Practice 4: (Model with mathematics) Using the GO! Motion students will be modeling position.
Velocity, and Acceleration. They will also be using the blocks to model quadratic functions.
Math Practice 5: (Use appropriate tools strategically) They need to analyze their mathematical tool
box, to find that they need to make connections between position and velocity. as well as how to
develop quadratics and things like that. This would mean they would have to have to collaborate with
others to develop the mathematical tools they need to solve the problem.
Math Practice 6: (Attend to precision) They will have to write down equations and be able to justify
each task they do.
Lesson Objective(s): What skill(s) and
Formative Assessment: What questions, tasks, or
understanding(s) will be developed? What
prompts will you ask as students work through the
should students be able to do or understand
lesson? Match assessment to objective where in
after completing this lesson?
the instruction did you check for understanding of

Students will be able to

-Analyzing position graphs using the GO!
Motion
-Collaborate with other students with
mathematical precision.
-Make connections between real world
application of velocity and position.
-Justify their solutions to quadratic and linear
equations.

that objective?
-Analyzing position graphs using the GO! Motion.

I plan to ask them questions such

as:

How do you
determine how fast to move or
slow?

Is this an accurate
representation of a real life scenario
and how?

How does
acceleration relate to this?

Students will be working together

to analyze the graph to find velocity and
acceleration.
-Collaborate with other students with mathematical
precision:

I plan to ask them questions such

as:

This can be
assessed by observing how many
students have provided input to the
group.

Making sure
students are writing down their
steps to solve the problems using
correct notation.

Also observing
and being able to correct the way to
discuss mathematics.

Students will be engaging in a

worthwhile task in groups, to encourage
collaboration, to get students to verbalize
their thoughts, and engage in the material. I
will be able to track this through observing
and helping them in their groups.
--Make connections between real world application
of velocity and position:

I plan to ask them questions such

as:

How could this

question be connected to real life?

Could you solve

this same problem using Calculus?


What observations
can make or hypothesize about the
problem before making
calculations?

What can you

recall from other classes that may
help you solve this questions?

Since they will begin the lesson

with a simulation, where the students will
have to make the graph of me moving
around, which will help them connect later
to the worthwhile task. Then students will
apply previous knowledge to the task, and
discuss with the teacher about their
observations.
-Justify their solutions to quadratic and linear
equations:

Students will have to write a

justification after their group work, as well
as, be able to explain their thoughts to the
class in discussion. Thus, students will be
justifying their answers.

After discovery activity we will

discuss how understanding quadratics can
help us. They will have to give solid
explanations of why there pictures are a
representation of a quadratic function.
Anticipate: What do you expect students might do with this activity? What misconceptions might that
have about this topic?
EXPECTATIONS FOR STUDENTS:
I expect most of the students to understand position and velocity graphs for the GO! Motion Station.
However, I hope using the technology is helpful for them to understand physically what is happening
in the graphs. The students should remember how to write equations of piecewise functions, but this
will help review those skills as well.
I expect the students to struggle a little bit with the quadratic blocks. The students in the class are not
very active participants in class and have not remembered a lot of the skills from algebra 2. So, I hope
this station will be very help for their understanding of quadratics.
MISCONCEPTIONS:
-Some possible misconceptions that students may have is that they do not need to use their skills from
algebra 2 because no teacher has really made them think about mathematics in this way.
-Some students might not think of the more simple quadratics if they do not truly understand what a
quadratic is.
-Some students might want to directly apply calculus to the quadratics when it is not necessary.

Lesson Launch: Exactly how will you engage

students in the content of the lesson? List how
you will build on what students already know,
the content to the real world, and/ or provide
opportunities for students to notice and wonder.
(5-7 minutes)
To motivate and engage student in mathematical
thinking I will ask them the following questions
that will lead into the discovery learning
activity:

I plan to take my little Mario

Kart Car that was an old costume and
pretend drive around and ask a student
to draw the position graph or the
velocity graph of my movement in my
car. ill

We will analyze the graph and

discuss the main concepts of domain,
range, etc.

Lesson Closure Notes: Exactly what summary

activity, questions, and discussion will close the
lesson and provide a foreshadowing of the next
lesson? List the questions and how you will organize
the students to share their ideas. This is how you
connect back to your objective and the CONTENT
of the lesson. Indicate plans for student selfevaluation.
(10 minutes)
I will pose questions on the board:

How did doing the GO! Motion

activity help us develop the realistic way to
represent calculus?

What skills did we need to solve

this problem?

What challenges did you have to

overcome in your problem?

How could we use this concept in

the real world?
I will then for homework or if I have extra time use
as an exit ticket to evaluate what they gained from
the lesson. It will be a very similar problem, but I
want to see the individual student's progress as well
as the class.

This will encourage students to think about

something not directly related to mathematics,
but will get them engaged in what we will be
doing in the lesson for that class period.
Lesson Tasks, Problems, and/or Activities (attach student handouts or other resources needed): What
specific activities, investigations, problems, questions, or tasks will students be working on during the
lesson? Include details, questions, and ideas for how you will facilitate the student engagement in the
learning. The focus is on what students will be doing. Make sure you include all your questions
throughout the lesson.
Discovery Lesson Stations:
Students will be partnered up or potentially in groups of 4 for the Go! Motion. This will allow students
to work in a smaller group environment to encourage students that are quiet to really get involved in
the learning. There will be two sections of class. One section we will have the GO! Motion! And the
students will be following the worksheet to figure out the graph. The other section will have the
quadratic blocks for them to create their functions with. The students will move between stations.
Everyone will begin working on the blocks and I will pull one group at a time to complete the GO!
Motion Activity!
For the GO! Motion activity the students wneed to come up with the piecewise functions of the curve.
The students will each be given a role:
(1) Explain the movements the student needs to make, meaning the position
(2) Explain the velocity of the person
(3) Sum it Up
(4) Active Person

Students once they have written down the piecewise function, I want them to take the derivative and
analyze the relationships between the activity and what we have been learning. I hope to make
connections between parabolas and things that they are learning.
For the blocks activity: I will model the triangular numbers
(Drawn here on the paper copy)

Then I will ask students to create your own function. They will then need to switch and discuss their
difference quadratics that they developed. I would like them to start with a linear growth example and
then go to the quadratics to focus on how to create these functions.
Then we will have a closure activity, discussion based. (5 minutes)
Evidence of Success: Ask yourself, What exactly do I expect students to be able to do by the end of
the lesson, and how will I measure student understanding? Consider the specific performances that
will convince you (and any outside observer) that your students have developed a deepened (and
conceptual) understanding of the content..
-I want the students to be able to understand the concept of position and velocity. I want them to
understand that the algebraic ways are tools that will allow us to find the velocity at different points.
I hope that the students will be able to understand how to properly justify their mathematics problems,
and I will be able to tell through the closure activity!
Resources and Materials: What materials or
resources are essential for students to
successfully complete the lesson tasks or
activities?
-Worksheets: Go! Motion, Quadratic Blocks
-Go! Motion
-Quadratic Blocks
-Positive energy

Notes and Nuances: Vocabulary, connections,

common mistakes, typical misconceptions, etc.
-Vocabulary: Maximal, Minimal, Quadratics, Vertex,
x-intercepts, standard form, factoring, derivative,
rate of change, slope, increasing, decreasing, linear.

Lesson Reflections: What questions, connected to the lesson objectives and evidence of success, will
you use to reflect on the effectiveness of this lesson? This question is about your own reflection of the
lesson. What do you want to ask yourself about how the lesson?
Answer:
How in this lesson did you . . .

Engage students in productive struggle?

Get students to think and make connections?
Provide support for each student?