Day 49: Finding the Domain and Range Errors

Quote of the Day: “Two young women told us that they have just returned from Iraq after having their HET truck disabled when an insurgent’s bullet went through the engine block. ‘It was a lucky shot,’ one of them said. Even if the insurgent had been aiming there, it would be highly unlikely to get that result.’ When asked what they did when the truck was disabled they said ‘We were taking fire and just hunkered down, protected the vehicle, and waited for reinforcements to arrive. We’re not just going to leave it there.’ As we parted, they thanked us for being there. I told them we should be profusely thanking them, and we did. Then one of them said, ‘you don’t have to be here. We do.’I could not believe how committed and courageous those two soldiers were. In our time at Camp Arifjan we found that was the rule rather than the exception.” - Jay Bilas

Question of the Day: "When we substitute for f(x) should we keep the (x)?" "How do we know to divide when Dan is on the sand for 2 feet per second instead of multiply by 325.6 feet?"

Regular Math Objective: Get better

Regular Math Standards: 8EE1 - 8EE4, NS.1, NS.2, 8.G.6 - 8.G.8

Regular Math Lesson Sequence: Catch Up Day

My overall take from this day was that it was good to give students the opportunity to improve and even better that some students took advantage of the opportunity. Timing this day right before a long weekend is advantageous because it did not make sense to start an entirely new unit and we are also one week from marks closing.

That said, some students did not get better. That's not to say that they made classroom management hard on me, but I had a few students just do TenMarks assignments and because I was busy with correcting other students quiz retakes and giving them feedback, I never got to provide feedback or prompting for students on TenMarks. It was not until evaluating their work afterward that I saw that some of the students who "were on TenMarks" did not submit anything from TenMarks. These also happened to be the students that needed to have a catch up day the most because they have failed assessments. I could have done a better job regulating what students should and should not be doing especially because the students that struggle the most struggle partially because they lack goal-directed behaviors.

One mistake worth noting from today. Many students it seemed made this subtraction error:

Honors Math Objective: Identify if ordered pairs, input out tables, and graphs are functions; use function notation to solve problems in a mathematical and real-world context; give the domain and range of discrete and continuous functions

Honors Math Standards: A1.F-IF

1. Understand that a function from one set (called the domain) to another set (called the range) assigns to 
   each element of the domain exactly one element of the range. If f is a function and x is an element of its domain, then f(x) denotes the output (range) of f corresponding to the input x. The graph of f is the graph of the equation y = f(x). 
2. Use function notation, evaluate functions for inputs in their domains, and interpret statements that use function notation in terms of a context. 

Honors Math Lesson Sequence: Students took the quiz. There were huge issues surrounding how they found the range. Unsurprisingly, the main reason they struggled was because the teacher (that's me) misled them. On the study guide, I made two crucial errors that I will admit to them (after they put their tomatoes in their lockers). The range for both questions 6 and 8 were corrected by a student in red ink here. As it turns out, number six the range should have been less than or equal to 8. In the second one, I said the range was greater than or equal to 7, but that would be the case if the domain was greater than or equal to 1 (which it wasn't).

When they say I should pull their grades up because I messed up I will say that I deserve a retake. That's how I handle their mistakes so it's good to be a classroom that allows retakes for literally everything on virtually any day. If I were to make an honest prediction, I actually think the kids will not complain that I made an error. They're pretty forgiving, but we'll see. Here were the mistakes of the students from the quiz:

I have no theory for why the student believes it has to be all even integers. And also why the range would then be just four specific points given such a large domain. Thus, it would be a great question to pose to the entire class when we go over it.

Why can't x be zero? And how can x be 0.5?

Water here! Get your ice cold water here! 

-Waterboy, I'll take one. 

Sorry sir we don't provide the option of buying one. You can buy 1.50 bottles if you like. That way if you are still thirsty after one, but won't finish two you'll have your thirst properly satisfied without the guilt of wasting a precious resource!

Ok so I can make fun of these I suppose, but I'll also be ready for the abuse to come right back on me since I'm the one that started all of this getting the domain and range wrong stuff anyway.