Bio: |
Tim Nuttle worked as
a copywriter in an advertising agency before enthusiastically jumping to his
current career as a high school math teacher. He is National Board Certified
Teacher and teaches AP® Calculus and Precalculus to a group of wonderful students
on the north side of Chicago, where he also lives with his wife and daughter.
|
STEM Lesson: |
This lesson relates to the Mean Value Theorem, and it implemented over the course of one class period, in my AP Calculus class.
Students had already been instructed to record data from a trip in the car with someone. The data consisted of:
Students worked in groups of four and chose the best set of data they had. Then they exchanged data sets, graphs of the data and the best-fit function with another group. Once all of the this was exchanged, the goal of each group is to determine whether the car (based on the data provided) was speeding. The students must use the Mean Value Theorem to figure out if the car was speeding or not. They need to find the average rate of change (the average speed) which must equal the derivative of the car's position (the velocity, at a certain time). If the average speed is over the speed limit, the car must have been speeding. This may seem difficult to some students, since they are not explicitly told to use the Mean Value Theorem to find their answer, and therefore they must relate the problem at hand to the application of the theorem. This application of the theorem allows students to demonstrate their understanding in a real world context. |