So, this holiday seems to be going pretty quick, and it we are now only a week away from the first #mathsjournalclub discussion! Next Monday (24th August 2015) at 8pm we are going to be discussing “A Glimpse into Secondary Students’ Understanding of Functions” by Brendefur, J, Hughes, G and Ely, R. The paper is here if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
I sat down to read it at the weekend with a bacon sandwich and found it an interesting read.
We shall start the discussion with a general “What did you think of the article?” and see where it leads us, but here are a few things you may like to think about:
- What did you think were the key points of the article?
- Do you agree with the four ways given that “students typically represent functional relationships: graphs, tables, verbal descriptions and equations” ?
- Has this article impacted on how you introduce and teach the understanding of functions?
- What are the limitations of the article/research?
One of the referenced papers is also worth a read as it is referred to extensively when the authors discuss covariational reasoning. This is the paper “Applying covariational reasoning while modelling dynamic events: A framework and a study” by Carlson, Jacobs, Coe, Larsen and Hsu.
I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts next week. Also, please send any articles to me if you want them on the Poll for the next article selection….