Reply To: Lesson 3-4: Discussion Prompt

[Julie Gonzales]

My big take away from this particular problem was the visual was very powerful for me to get all of the different representations. I was taught to put the function in a table and find the difference between terms. I saw the first difference was 5, then 7, then 9, etc. When the primary difference is not the same, then you find the secondary difference between primary differences (5, 7, 9, etc) with all of those being the same (2), then you know the function is quadratic. Then you would build the rule by guess and check. Soooooo many steps in order to come up with the rule.

After I saw the visual (after the hint to organize in the shape of a square), I could get to the “nth” term very quickly. Talk about mind blown here! This was so much more easy than the way I was taught to memorize all those years ago!