Eleven years ago, I wrote a post titled What is All the Fuss About Lines? In it, I discussed the difficulties that students encounter when asked to determine the equation of a line. Faced with formulas for calculating slope, the point-slope form of a line, and the slope-intercept form, students lose … Continue Reading ››
Tag Archives: slope
Slope of the Sine Function, Part 2
In my previous post, I presented a non-algebraic approach to exploring the slope of the sine function. That method involved placing a secant line on the graph and then dragging the two points that defined the line as close together as possible to approximate the tangent line.
By dragging, … Continue Reading ››
Slope of the Sine Function, Part 1
When I reached calculus in my senior year of high school, it was clear that it sat atop a mountain that I had been ascending ever since my Algebra 1 class. Without the tools and procedures I had amassed from algebra and precalculus, I could never have performed the symbolic manipulations necessary to … Continue Reading ››