Timeline for Should I be teaching point-slope formula to high school algebra students?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
25 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 26, 2018 at 22:02 | answer | added | Sue VanHattum♦ | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 27, 2018 at 17:51 | answer | added | mweiss | timeline score: 8 | |
| Mar 26, 2018 at 21:05 | answer | added | johnnyb | timeline score: 10 | |
| Mar 24, 2018 at 2:49 | answer | added | guest | timeline score: 0 | |
| Nov 13, 2015 at 3:19 | answer | added | kcrisman | timeline score: 2 | |
| Nov 10, 2015 at 20:12 | comment | added | Wmol | The good news is after I showed him the argument of deriving the formula for a derivative from point-slope, he agreed that it is worth showing students the formula to students. He still doesn't want to spend much time on it, but I'll consider it a success! At least I have convinced myself that is very important to show students this form in algebra. | |
| Nov 10, 2015 at 7:01 | history | edited | Benjamin Dickman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
I added the concept-motivation tag; I also altered the title from "Why should I..." to "Should I..." to make it slightly more neutral. (Admittedly, the latter effect is probably diminishingly small.) Also, I changed 'advanced algebra' to 'high school algebra' to avoid post-secondary confusion.
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| Nov 7, 2015 at 6:49 | comment | added | Daniel R. Collins | OpenStax College Algebra, Chapter 2: "This is an important formula, as it will be used in other areas of college algebra and often in calculus to find the equation of a tangent line." | |
| Nov 5, 2015 at 0:17 | comment | added | celeriko | having gone through an incredibly similar circumstance, if you feel that you love teaching, just do exactly what @benCrowell says and deal with him how you need to this year. Soon you will have your own room where you can do it however you would like. him being at a "battle" for years as you say, means he is probably close-minded and will never be convinced but he ultimately, at least in my state, makes the official recommendation to get you certified or not | |
| Nov 4, 2015 at 13:41 | answer | added | BBS | timeline score: 3 | |
| Nov 4, 2015 at 7:15 | answer | added | Jessica B | timeline score: 6 | |
| Nov 4, 2015 at 4:04 | answer | added | Steven Alexis Gregory | timeline score: 9 | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 21:12 | answer | added | Steven Gubkin | timeline score: 29 | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 21:00 | comment | added | Dave L Renfro | For whatever it's worth, the point-slope formula can be milked in precalculus classes by showing how the precalculus notions of horizontal and vertical shifts lead one from the middle school idea of direct variation to the point-slope formula. Start with $y=mx,$ and replace $x$ with $x-a$ (shifts right by $a$ units) and replace $y$ with $y-b$ (shifts down by $b$ units). | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 19:06 | answer | added | Cort Ammon | timeline score: 11 | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 13:43 | history | edited | Wmol | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 355 characters in body
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| Nov 3, 2015 at 4:44 | comment | added | Wmol | Thanks for the words Ben. This semester has been frustrating. I think you're right though. I've never won any arguments (though I admit, I'm young and I'm sure a lot of my opinions are subject to change with experience), but it's probably not worth trying to convince him otherwise. A lot of the things we've taught have been inaccurate for these students. For example, teaching half-life as an example of inverse variation. For those who don't remember, half-life is exponential decay whereas inverse variation is of the form y=k/x where k is some constant. | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 23:41 | comment | added | Greg | Students should not only know point slope form, but should be able to write a proof showing they are equivalent. 24 years of repetition means he's very experienced at doing things wrong. Perhaps you can have the calculus teacher in your school send him an e-mail asking him to make sure the kids learn point-slope form so they are prepared for calculus. | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 23:36 | comment | added | user507 | How can I convince my cooperating teacher? He's been teaching for 24 years. Obviously you're not going to change his mind. Ignore him and do the right thing yourself when you have your own classroom. | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 23:35 | comment | added | user507 | I teach college, not high school, so my expectations might not be appropriate here -- but I see your mentor's attitude as being way, way off base. The slope-intercept form and the point-slope form are trivial variations on one another. A good student should be able to independently derive one from the other, without explicit instruction. Although a weaker student might not be able to figure out the correspondence from scratch, it would be totally unacceptable IMO for such a student to emerge from even a basic Algebra 1 class without being able to handle both forms. | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 21:09 | answer | added | Daniel R. Collins | timeline score: 11 | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 20:55 | answer | added | user5810 | timeline score: 19 | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 20:41 | answer | added | Henry Towsner | timeline score: 36 | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 20:03 | comment | added | DavidButlerUofA | To be fair, many other teachers must have made the same decision. The state curriculum where I grew up/taught as a teacher didn't have anything but slope-intercept or general form until Year 12. Even then it was of the flavour of (y-y1)/(x-x1) = m, then rearrange to another form. | |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 19:54 | history | asked | Wmol | CC BY-SA 3.0 |