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Where does all this fit in terms of attainment? Click here to see level by level descriptions for this work.
Description of content:
Phase C: This phase is about understanding and plotting straight line graphs, in all quadrants if possible but possibly
restricted to first quadrant if other quadrants are still causing difficulties.
Ideas for establishing and practicing “seeing” straight lines as the result of being given a rule as to how x and y coordinates relate are
as follows:
Position the origin at the near left corner (as viewed from the BACK of the classroom) so that the grid or visual representation of the
desks that you are all looking at on the SmartBoard is oriented the same way. Teacher reads out a connection between the x and y
values e.g. “Stand up if your x value is 2x your y value” etc to establish idea that these rules will generate straight lines. Include
horizontal and vertical lines. At some point, get a student to mark the coordinates of the students standing on your SmartBoard version
to demonstrate the straight line connection.
An alternative idea is to have post it notes prepared with things like “My x coordinate is 2” and “My y coordinate is double my x
coordinate plus 3” to hand out as students come in and they stick these to your SmartBoard grid (make sure only one rule is being
stuck up at a time, possibly use different colour post it notes? Idea still is to establish that a given rule relating x and y produces a
straight line.
Using your class to plot these points can then be extended to all 4 quadrants by putting the origin near the centre of your room, could
use this to establish that as you already know that it will produce a straight line, start with the easy x values (i.e. the positives) and then
continue the straight line into the negative quadrants. Refer to this idea later when completing tables of results and plotting on paper.
This same idea of positioning the easy ones first and then continuing the line can be used with positioning the post it notes in all
quadrants too.
Use the last tasks to change wordy explanations like “my y value is twice my x value” into “Maths Speak” such as y=2x – probably
could just practice this task. You should find a card sort activity.
Move from this confidence to being able to complete a table of results using a given rule, remind to start from the easy x values and
then just use the pattern in the differences to complete the section where the x values are negative, to generate coordinate pairs.
Plot these pairs to form straight lines, highlighting that they can spot obvious errors if the line is not straight.
Good practice on this can be found here, it even starts to get students to notice similarities and differences in the straight lines – e.g.
steepness.
Core and extension groups now need to appreciate that the variables might not always be called x and y but in real life we might have
cost and minutes (mobile phone tariffs), pounds and euros, centigrade and Fahrenheit etc and they should be able to use equations
given in these contexts to plot and interpret.
See the linked SmartBoard screens for progressing from finding the midpoints of two numbers to finding the midpoints of a line
segment given just the coordinates of both ends of the line.