Recitation 5

Recitation 5 (The Derivative at a Point and Measuring Speed)

Objectives:

• Students should be able to interpret and estimate instantaneous rate of change from a graph.
• Students should be able to estimate the slope of the tangent line to a function by creating a table.

Lesson Plans

• (5 minutes)] Welcome the class to recitation. Ask students if they have filled in the notes section of the packet. Tell students that they should be filling in the notes section before coming to recitation.

• (10 minutes)] Have students do Problem 1 parts a and b.

• (10 minutes)] Have students do Problem 1 parts c-g.

• (5 minutes)] Use the document camera and go over answers to problem 1, parts a-g.

• (15 minutes)] Have students do problem 1 part h -j.

• (15 minutes)] Have students do problem 1k and l then have each group write their ordering somewhere on the board. Talk about any discrepancies as a class. Make sure that people understand the differences between m and n (should this be "differences between k and l"?).

• (15 minutes)] Have students do Problem 2. Make sure that students actually build a table for their estimates.

• (5 minutes)] Plan a 5 minute summary to give the students at the end of class.

Note: The Derivative function worksheet will be longer for many students 
so you may begin this worksheet if your class gets through this one quickly.  
However, in any case you should not spend more than 15 minutes on the next worksheet.

These times add up to 80 minutes.

Notes

• Problem 1, specifically part (g), caused a lot of confusion and took significantly longer than the time allotted.
• For parts asking about "ranking slopes" I had a lot of students confused and thinking they should get exact numbers. Perhaps good to say something at the beginning about these being estimates based on the graph.