While students were constructing the concept of rates of change, linear relationships, and nonlinear relationships in a first-year algebra class, the wanted to build a task that allowed them to increase their understanding of covariation, that is, how two variables change in relation to each other. Research has shown that students who have built…

Imagine a math classroom that recognizes the power of mathematics and uses it as a tool to understand the world so that the mathematics can enjoin a larger conversation. What is it like to live on a minimum wage? How is wealth distributed throughout the country or world? When will a country first experience a shortage of food? Mathematics…

Understanding how one representation connects to another and how the essential ideas in that relationship are generalized can result in a mathematical theorem or a formula. In this article, the authors demonstrate this process by connecting a vector cross product in algebraic form to a geometric representation and applying a key mathematical idea…

In first- and second-year algebra classrooms, the all-too-familiar whine of "when are we ever going to use this in real life?" challenges mathematics teachers to find new, engaging ways to present mathematical concepts. The introduction of quadratic equations is typically modeled by describing the motion of a moving object with respect…

Exploration with spreadsheets and reliance on previous skills can lead students to determine the line of best fit. To perform linear regression on a set of data, students in Algebra 2 (or, in principle, Algebra 1) do not have to settle for using the mysterious "black box" of their graphing calculators (or other classroom technologies).…

Spreadsheets provide a rich setting for first-year algebra students to solve problems. Individual spreadsheet cells play the role of variables, and creating algebraic expressions for a spreadsheet to perform a task allows students to achieve a glimpse of how mathematics is used to program a computer and solve problems. Classic optimization…

For 500 years, dream catchers have been cultural symbols of intrigue worldwide. The most common folkloric design is a 12-point dream catcher. According to Native American legend, the first dream catcher was woven by a "spider woman" to catch the bad dreams of a chief's sick child. Once the bad dreams were caught, the chief's child was…

It is critical for mathematics tasks to provide students with the opportunity to engage actively in reasoning, sense making, and problem solving so that they develop a deep understanding of mathematics. Learning mathematics while solving a problem can be like entering a dark room with a single small light. The objects are in the shadows, difficult…

While tutoring his granddaughter in second-year algebra recently, the second author lamented that every textbook he could find expresses the quadratic formula as probably the most common form of the formula. What troubled him is that this form hides the meaning of the various components of the equation. Indeed, the meaning was obscured by the…

How can we make sense of what we learned today?" This is a question the author commonly poses to her algebra students in an effort to have them think about the connections between the new concept they are learning and concepts they have previously learned. For students who have a strong, expansive understanding of previously learned topics,…

The goal of this article is to raise questions that will promote discussions among secondary mathematics teachers about the concept of inverse functions and how to motivate a more conceptual understanding of them in their classrooms. The authors share data to answer the following questions: (1) What meanings of inverse functions do high school…

During the 2013-2014 school year, the Maryland State High School Assessment in Algebra with Data Analysis (HSA) was a requirement for high school graduation in Maryland. At Frederick High School, only 27 percent of students who took the test that year passed. To respond to such an alarming failure rate, three teachers and the author developed and…

What do nonroutine algebra problems look like for a second-year algebra course, and where can such problems be found? Starting from the belief that even challenging, nonroutine problems should be solvable with the resources that students possess, Benjamin Dickman proceeded to formulate a small collection of tasks to push students into integrating…

One of the foundational topics in first-year algebra concerns the concept of factoring. This article discusses an alternative strategy for factoring quadratics of the form ax[superscript 2] + bx + c, known as "factoring for roots." This strategy enables students to extend the knowledge they used when the leading coefficient was 1 and…

Polynomials with rational roots and extrema may be difficult to create. Although techniques for solving cubic polynomials exist, students struggle with solutions that are in a complicated format. Presented in this article is a way instructors may wish to introduce the topics of roots and critical numbers of polynomial functions in calculus. In a…