Lesson 4

Using Technology to Work with Sequences

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Lesson Narrative

This lesson is optional. The purpose of the lesson is to take time to explicitly teach students how to use spreadsheets and graphing technology in ways that are useful for working with sequences. In a spreadsheet, they learn to refer to a cell's address, enter a formula that uses the contents of a cell, and use the "fill down" functionality. With graphing technology, they learn to plot a list of points entered in a table, where a rule can be used to determine the \(y\)-coordinate based on the corresponding value of the \(x\)-coordinate. By taking part in this lesson and having access to these tools throughout the unit, students will be in a position to choose appropriate tools strategically (MP5).


Learning Goals

Teacher Facing

  • Create a graph of a sequence using graphing technology.
  • Use a spreadsheet to continue a sequence by applying a recursive rule.

Student Facing

Let’s use technology to create a sequence.

Required Materials

Required Preparation

Acquire devices that can run GeoGebra (recommended) or other spreadsheet technology and Desmos (recommended) or other graphing technology. It is ideal if each student has their own device. (A GeoGebra Spreadsheet and Desmos Graphing Calculator are available under math tools.)

Learning Targets

Student Facing

  • I can use a spreadsheet to create many terms of a sequence.
  • I can use technology to graph a sequence.

CCSS Standards

Building On

Addressing

Building Towards

Print Formatted Materials

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Additional Resources

Google Slides

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PowerPoint Slides

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