Sequence and Series Cards

I made a set of sequence cards over the summer and while I knew then that I wanted to use them to help students with sequences I didn't know exactly how I planned on using them.  I shared them on twitter with a few ppl, but got no suggestions on how to use them.

On Friday as I had just completed working with Arithmetic and Geometric sequences with 2 of my classes  I decided that I wanted my students to work on writing explicit and recursive equations, so I had the students break themselves into small groups (3-4 students max) and I gave each group 1 (of the 5) sets of 8 equations.

Here is where it got fun.  First, the students cut out the cards and placed them face-up on one of the desks.  Then I had them choose 1 card to give away (group 1 to 2, 2 to 3... 5 to 1).  So they gave away their hardest sequence.  Then I let 1 person from each group take 2 cards from another group (this time 5 from 4, 4 from 3, ...)  Now that the cards were exchanged, and a little attitude distributed to the groups we were ready.

I gave the groups 10 minutes to find both kinds of equations for each of the sequences.  The time limit assured that it was unlikely that 1 of the students could do this while the rest of the group watched (I hate that ).

I took a set of cards myself and shuffled them.  After the 10 minutes had passed I started randomly choosing sequences and rolling a die to choose which rule I wanted (explicit or recursive). If a correct answer was given the group picked a representative to throw a bean bag for a chance to get up to 3 points for the upcoming quiz.

Next time I need to find a way to make sure more groups get a chance to play (the first hour I did this, one groups got 4 chances to throw the bag and 2 groups didn't get called on at all).  I will do this by limiting the cards in my own shuffled deck (12 instead of the full 40 cards).  I will also make sure to keep the warm-up to just the 5 mins its supposed to take and spend less time on the previous day's homework so the time for this activity is greater.

Still, it was a great lesson.