Activity 3 - Teacher Guidelines
Objective of Activity:
Materials needed:
Anticipated student reactions:
Questions to pose to the students:
Answer Key
- Students will further solidify their understanding of how the vertex and distance between the focus and directrix relate to the equation of a parabola.
Materials needed:
- By student: The handout from the previous activity to use as a reference, a computer, maybe a calculator if the student has a hard time understanding the value of improper fractions.
- By teacher: preferably a means of projecting the applet for the whole class to see (such as a Smart Board or Promethean Board).
Anticipated student reactions:
- Some students will find this applet extremely frustrating to work with at first. Encourage the students to be patient, really think about what h, k, and a all represent, and how these parameters are represented in the equation and how they correspond to the graph.
- The frustration comes from the fact that once students get their vertex in place, adjusting the distance between the focus and the vertex causes the vertex to move. Suggest that students move the focus a little up/down, and then move the directrix in the opposite direction in order to balance the vertex back to where the student had placed it.
Questions to pose to the students:
- If our k (or h) value is ___, what does this tell us about the location of the vertex?
- If our value of a is ____, what does that tell us about the distance between the focus and the vertex?
Answer Key
- Khan Academy will tell students if their answers are right or wrong. An answer key cannot be created because the questions are randomly assigned.