Curve Sketching in a Thinking Classroom

I ended my first full unit teaching in a Thinking Classroom (you can read about the beginning of this journey for me here) in my calculus classes just before the March break. I surveyed my students and had mixed feelings about the results. Many suggested 20 minutes of notes at the beginning of class, yet many of these same students also said that they never looked at the notes I post on Google classroom each day. I e-mailed Alex Overwijk to ask for advice, saying that I felt like I was doing something wrong, or at least not entirely right. His response went along the lines of "they don't like being uncomfortable, they don't like having to struggle and you aren't doing anything wrong". I think that what led to me feeling as I did had a lot to do with the very skill-based nature of the unit. They were taking derivatives and taking more derivatives and then they took some more derivatives. This led to groups taking turns doing questions. The questions were not challenging enough to require them to work together as a group to solve them. I'm not sure how to change that for the let's-learn-how-to-take-derivatives unit, but I will ponder that some more before we get there again next year.

This past week we have been working on the elements of curve sketching. Using the first and second derivatives to help determine intervals of increase and decrease, local maximum and minimum points, intervals of concavity, points of inflection, etc. I have continued to use visible random groups and they have continued to work on the VNPS (whiteboard/chalkboard) for almost the entire class each day. I have tried to be more intentional about what I do work through with them - mostly at the beginning of the class. The questions have been more interesting and more challenging for them. I am really pleased with their efforts. I am finding that they are putting all the pieces together more easily and that I am also thinking more deeply about the material. And it's fun! At least twice this week the bell rang at the end of my afternoon class without anyone in the room being aware that it was the end of class. They didn't want to stop. It's incredible how much fantastic work they are producing and how well they can explain it all to me. I am not quite sure how much gushing is appropriate, but my students are awesome. I snapped this picture of some of them this morning and it makes me happy and proud to look at it.

Here is the progression I used for the week (apologies - I got lazy and didn't include all the answers). They did not all get through every question yesterday and today, but I believe that they all have a solid grasp of the material. I continue to post filled-in notes at the end of each day should they wish to review the work or try any of the questions on their own.