MTED 2800/3900
Fall, 2004

Essay on Sue's Diagram and Falling Paper Clip

Sue and Daryl were 7^th-graders who had gone through a special unit on average rates of change (which you will read about later). You are free to address anything that comes to mind in reaction to the transcripts of the sessions with them. I ask only that you address these issues among those that occur to you.

1. Your overall impression of the problems that were posed to 7th graders and of these 7th-graders' responses.
2. Whether Sue and Daryl are just very bright or whether this kind of reasoning could be expected of most 7th-graders if they only had the proper prior instruction.
3. Relate the instruction you saw in these sessions to issues raised in The Teaching Gap.