Month: May 2012

Equations of Lines, and Other Coordinate Geometry

This is just a simple worksheet with twelve questions about finding the equations of straight lines and about gradients and the distance between two points. It’s laid out as twelve questions and I asked my students to work through them in any order.

A few of my students really like to cut out the questions individually and paste them in, writing their answers below. It helps them keep their work neat. I like anything that makes a worksheet more interesting for them! Even just giving them the choice of what order to do the questions in seems to make them feel more resilient.

The worksheet is available here in pdf format.

Mean, Median, and Mode: Sorting Cards

I have a set of cards with statements like these:

Some of the statements are always true, others are never or sometimes true. I give each pair of students a set of these cards and a laminated board (below). The students have to discuss and sort the statements.

Next, I ask students for feedback and I will often lead a whole class discussion highlighting some of the common misconceptions. This activity always leads to good discussion, both between the pairs and as a class. Here are pdf documents: the cards and the board. If you try it, please leave a comment telling me how it goes.

True or False Sorting Cards for Arithmetic Sequences and Series

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I have noticed that my students get a bit confused sometimes with arithmetic sequences. They think that the statement above is true: the sixth term in a sequence can be found by doubling the third term. So I made up a set of true/false sorting cards that highlighted some common misconceptions. There are seven statements like the one above that I ask students to sort and then we discuss them as a class.

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I made these cards with Tarsia; a pdf is available here.