I really enjoyed class this week because I felt like I was able to put everything we’ve learned together. In the beginning of the week we learned curve sketching and then to finish the week we started learning about optimization. I really enjoyed the curve sketching because to me it felt like a big puzzle. We had to figure out all of these small parts and eventually used them to find the graph of the original function. When we learned all of the parts individually, I didn’t really know what was going on. Before Thanksgiving we went by sections learning increasing and decreasing, concave up and down, and all the different parts, but at that point I wasn’t understanding what we were doing. This week, when we put all the pieces together, it clicked for me. I think the thing that helped was the graph gallery walk. It didn’t take very long, but it was very beneficial for me. Each graph asked us a different question that related to seeing values on either the original function, or the derivative. So basically, we were given a graph, and we had to visualize another one based on what we were given, and then answer a question about it. Generally, I am horrible at that kind of thing. I would normally have to sit down and draw everything out and it would take me 5 minutes, but with this activity we only had 20 seconds. At first I was horrible at it but after a couple graphs, I became much quicker at it and started understanding how both graphs related. This was a super helpful activity and loved it. Analyzing the graphs helped a ton when it came to understanding the curve sketching and made the rest of the week much easier. I love that we do different activities like this to help us learn instead of just taking notes and doing an assignment everyday.
(I know that this picture is of random young children, but I forgot to take a picture of our gallery walk when we did it, and this is kind of the same idea.)
(I know that this picture is of random young children, but I forgot to take a picture of our gallery walk when we did it, and this is kind of the same idea.)