We have started the Core 3 teaching as the Lower Sixth return to school after their exams, and we focus on two topics: Calculus and Trigonometry. As I am teaching two groups this year, I am actually teaching both bits of the course, but I most definitely prefer the calculus. On their first lesson back (first thing on Monday morning), we delved straight into the Chain Rule and how it works. At that stage we didn't focus too much on why it works (since nearly half the class were doing FP1 at the time, and didn't want them to miss that), but I was looking for an activity that would get them practising using the Chain Rule. I found this excellent Chain Rule Match Up activity on TES by the fantastic Mr Barton. There are 12 pairs of functions, where one is the derivative of the other, and they vary in difficulty. The idea is that the students have to match up the pairs that go together. What made this activity even more appealing was that 5 of the derivatives had been left blank, so that students would have to work them out themselves. I printed out several copies, each on different coloured card, and gave them to my group in pairs. It took between 15 and 25 minutes for them all to finish, and it really cemented the idea of what they needed to do when using the Chain Rule, before moving on to the exercise from the book. They really enjoyed it, and took a lot from it. I was so impressed with the quality of this resource, that I mentioned it to my whole department, and now every class has used the activity. Another winner from Mr Barton!
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Dan Rodriguez-Clark
I am a maths teacher looking to share good ideas for use in the classroom, with a current interest in integrating educational research into my practice. Categories
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August 2021
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