This week I taught one of my favourite lessons with my lovely year 8's. The lesson goes like this:1) I start by introducing the basics of the graphs. Time on the x-axis, distance on the y.
2) I tell students a story about Ian. I describe how long it takes Ian to get to a sweet shop where he buys some treats for his friend. We discuss how far away from home Ian is and how much time he takes before he carries on to his friend Derek's place. Students place counters on a graph on the white board and we map out what this story looks like graphically. For example, when he is in the sweet shop, the graph is horizontal. We also discussed when Ian walked quicker based on the gradient or slope of the graph.
3) Next, I draw a random graph on the board and ask students to think about a story that the graph could represent. We discuss and mostly laugh at the randomness of some of my more creative students.
4) Students work in pairs to do the same thing I did. They write a story about a journey at the top of a piece of paper. I ask students to fold a piece the paper so that only the story is revealed. At the bottom, in the hidden part of the paper, they represent the story graphically. I ask students to hide their graphs and then exchange them with another group. Students read the new story, draw a graph on a white board and then unfold the paper to see if their interpretations match.
5) If the graphs are different, students analyse who was more accurate and offer some feedback to the other group.
My students loved it. There was a lot of discussion and a lot of creativity in the lesson and it engaged all students. The topic is not difficult to understand but it was one of those moments where the freedom to analyse and create was just as valuable as actually learning the basics of the graph.
Next topic...y=mx+c!
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