Steven Yarbrough,
Reich College
of Education, Appalachian State University
Artifact 6
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Context
I created this Graphing Calculator Game Activity during my MAT 4015
("Senior Seminar for Mathematics Majors in Education," Spring 2004)
course, taught by Dr. Deborah Crocker. I used AppleWorks in
connection with a TI-83+ SE Graphing Calculator
(using TI-Connect Software and hardware) to create this game-based
activity,
which asks students to play a graphing calculator game to practice
identifying various forms of lines and curves.
This artifact should be used by algebra teachers whose students need
practice with graphing calculators, absolute value equations, linear
equations, or quadratic equations.
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Impact
Students using this activity will gain practice with NC S.C.O.S.
standards 4.01b (Algebra 1), 2.02b, and 2.08b (Algebra 2) -- all dealing with the roles of
constants and coefficients in various types of functions.
Students will be asked to play the game and record their scores;
students should realize that practice will allow them to improve their
ability to recognize common forms and to identify coefficients and
constants by looking at a graph. This artifact will support the
classroom environment by serving as an assignment which might be deemed
more fun or interesting than traditional study tasks.
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Alignment
In the process of becoming comfortable with common forms of lines and
curves, students require different amounts of practice and may focus on
different topics. This activity supports a learner-centered
strategy, since technology is being used to help individual students
practice and gain confidence. The game allows different settings,
so students may choose to practice with one form alone or with all
forms simultaneously and may choose to get hints. For these
reasons, this artifact satisfies NETS-T standard III-B.
Since this game activity allows students to assume responsibility of
their own learning while actively engaged in practice, this artifact
demonstrates INTASC standard 2
for student development. This artifact encourages students to
become involved in self-assessment using technology, thus satisfying
INTASC standard 8 for assessment.
