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| Different Forms of Linear Function Notes |
On the first day of this section of the unit, we only took the notes that can see in the above picture. So, we wrote the names of each form and the general form that it takes. Then, we played the flyswatter game. I've written about playing the fly swatter game before. Here's a post I wrote about playing this same game in Algebra 2 with the different forms of a quadratic function.
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| Fly Swatter Game |
I started off the day playing the fly swatter game as I learned it in the fifth grade. Form two teams. Each team makes a line. The members at the front of each line go to the board and take a fly swatter. The teacher reads a definition. The first student to correctly slap the answer goes to the back of their line. The other student sits down because they are now out of the game.
For my smaller Algebra 1 classes, this works great. But, my 6th period Algebra 1 class has 18 students. That may not seem very big, but it is for my school. It's the biggest class I've ever had. My classroom just isn't big enough to hold that many students comfortably.
So, I decided to control the number of students standing up and thus (hopefully) control the chaos in my room. Enter the bracket.
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| Fly Swatter Game with Bracket |
The two students listed on the bracket are the only ones standing up. The rest of the students are sitting in their seats and trying to figure out what form the linear function I have displayed on the board is. Those in their seats get to use their notebooks. Those at the board are notebookless. So, if you want to be named the champion, it is in your best interest to get all the practice you can while sitting in your seat with your notebook!
Plus, the biggest piece of advice I can give you about using interactive notebooks is to give the students opportunities to use them. The more they use them and see them as helpful, the more likely they will be to use them in the future. This wasn't just a game. It was practice at using our notes.
After the competitors would slap the answer, I would let the class declare who the winner was. They would often start describing to the class easy ways they had figured out to determine what form a function was in. Win!
I had so much more engagement from my students by following the bracket model than how I'd played it previously. This adaptation is a definite keeper!
The next day, we went back and filled in the inside of the foldable with more details about each form of a linear function.