Kevin Root

TE 804
5/2/15
Teaching Experiment 4 Reflection: Sequence Cards Activity
For my final teaching experiment using formative assessment, I
used a sequencing card activity as a review for my Algebra 2A class on
exponential functions. I wanted students to use cards that were given
to them with a different representation of a certain problem (story
problem, solution with growth or decay, exponential graph, and
exponential equation), and find their matches within the room. I felt
this activity would be beneficial to students understanding of
exponential functions by making connections through multiple
representations and connecting back to previous ideas and
characteristics of growth and decay functions that will help them with
an upcoming quiz.
I started the class with this activity and shuffled the cards before
passing them out randomly to students around the room. After this I
explained to students the instructions of this activity, where students
would need to find their matches by communicating their thinking
about the card they have to other students in the class. I told students
they had a couple minutes to look at their card and write down any
information they wanted to have before finding their matches. This
was one of my lower level classes so I wanted to make sure it was clear

what group work should look like. I wanted to make sure my students
werent giving each other answers or looking for shortcuts to
accomplishing the task without having meaningful conversations about
the content. Other than these directions, I wanted to keep the task
open ended and give students the freedom to decide what they would
need to do to find their matches. When I noticed groups begin to find
matches, I had them go sit down somewhere next to each other and to
be prepared to come up to the document camera to present their work.
I wanted the groups of four to have a quick discussion first about how
they found each other, gather their ideas and strategies they used, and
how they would present this to the class.
I felt that the activity went smoothly for the most part, but with
this group of students in particular; it was hard to get them motivated
to move around and to have conversations. With this class not being
used to group activities where they are moving around the room, they
seemed unsure or unwilling at times to participate. After letting them
talk about the task initially I knew with this group of students I would
need to give more instructions so I let students know that there were
four matches per group. It was really interesting to see some students
creating tables of values when given an equation card and most
students with the story problem were creating an equation first. This
showed me about my teaching during previous lessons and the
practice that students have with problems before has an effect on their

thinking. The book problems that students did with story problems
require them to create an equation and decide whether it was an
exponential growth or decay equation. When teaching how to graph
exponential functions, my notes would start with an equation then we
would create a table and plot the points to create the graph. Doing
this activity has taught me a lot about my teaching and how students
seemed to revert back to these experiences earlier in the unit and it
showed.
When teaching this to my Algebra 2A class throughout the unit,
we went in an order that was different then how the book would go
through it. My mentor teacher and I decided it would be good for
students to work on creating graphs of exponential and log functions
after working with how to solve these types of equations. Starting the
unit we went over problems like the story problems given in this
activity and they needed to decide whether the equation they created
from the problem was a decay or growth function. However, it wasnt
until after a quiz on this, discussing and evaluating log functions that
we started to talk about the graphs of exponential functions. When
using this task I felt students with story problems werent sure how
they would find a match and somewhat waited for students to come to
them. They hadnt seen these types of problems in awhile and if I were
to teach this unit again I would make sure I connect these lessons
together to correlate with this activity. Especially with this class, I

would want to have them working with these types of problems

identifying first is it a growth or decay function, how do they know
based on the story problem given (depreciation/decreasing or
appreciation/increasing), create the equation for this problem, make a
table of values, and graph the function. While it does make this seem
structured for students to find matches in this order, I think there are
still opportunities for students to look at how multiple representations
could be connected and how to work backwards to possibly creating a
story problem with an equation or graph. If I did this activity again I
would create another card to the sequence that would have table
values to add another dimension and connection to the matches.
When talking to teachers and students in education at our lesson study
presentations, I would also try an idea that was said at this event. One
of the people there brought up the idea of having some groups with
five matches, others with three, and changing up how many students
they would have to find. It would create more conversations and
questioning of could we be the only matches in our group? Could there
be more? I think this lets students know that they must have more
discussions to verify they are correct this way.
The other really important part of effectively implementing this
activity is making sure the content fits the task. We saw this in the
lesson study and the representation or cards that we decide upon to
use must allow for multiple chains or matches between students.

Students should be able to work backwards, and find different matches

based on how they think about the mathematical concepts and with
this activity I think that was successful. I do want to explore this
activity more and find content other than using equations, graphs, and
problems that challenge students thinking and will be effective at
helping students connect between multiple representations.