Links and Activity Descriptions for Hunting the Elusive Rational Function

Whether you're at the session or not, please feel free to play, explore, re-blog, share your own resources and activities, talk about how you would use these with students, etc!

Rational Functions Desmos Activity Links:

• Observing Beetles Polygraph -- start here and reflect on how naturalists notice and describe animals
• Teacher version
• student.desmos.com Class Code aqb6
• Observing Graphs Polygraph -- what do you notice and how do you describe graphs?
• Teacher version
• student.desmos.com Class Code zkrm
• Observing Expanded Functions Polygraph -- "graph DNA" in another form!
• Teacher version
• student.desmos.com Class Code h9qa
• Observing Factored Functions Polygraph -- just like DNA gives animals their features, take a look at the DNA of some graphs
• Teacher version 
• student.desmos.com Class Code rhax 
• Rational Functions Card Sort -- work through each card sort. How can we group into "species"? Which DNA goes with each graph?
• Teacher version
• student.desmos.com Class Code vrgr

Other stuff:

Glen Waddell's 1600 Rational Functions and Handout

Changing the Scale of our Calculations:

• Each of the functions we're looking at in the Rational Functions card sort is written in expanded form. A tool for you to use is file folders with the expanded equation written on the outside, and each factor written on a separate piece of paper on the inside. The reasoning for this is:
• Factoring can be hard for students, especially when they're also focused on studying new kinds of functions and working with operations on fractions!
• Students can use these as tools to make new expressions and rewrite functions in different ways. They learn the value of the skill before having to practice it!
• Because each factor is paper-sized, more students can work together, standing up around a group of desks or table, or kneeling on the floor. 
• One way to fade the support is to have the students be the ones to find the factors and put them into the folders before operating on the rational functions.
• Or you can have the folders labeled with the expanded polynomials, and the pieces of paper with each factor, and students have to match the folders to the factors (which could be pre-paperclipped together or completely loose)