Session 10, Grades 6-8, Part E:
Critiquing Student Lessons (20 minutes)

In the Grades 6-8 curriculum, students are frequently asked to think about patterns, but often their "pattern sniffing" skills end with simply finding the next object. For each of the problems below, answer the following questions: Note 8 a.  What algebraic ideas are in this problem? b.  How are patterns used in this problem? c.  What mathematics do you think students would learn from this problem? d.  How would you modify the problem, or what additional questions might you ask, to incorporate the framework for analyzing patterns?
Problem E1
How many tiles will be in the eighth figure of this pattern? How do you know?

Problem E1 taken from Gateways to Algebra and Geometry, An Integrated Approach by John Benson, Sara Dodge, Walter Dodge, Charles Hamberg, George Milauskas, And Richard Rukin. Copyright 1997 by McDougal Little Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission of McDougal Littlel Inc..

"Problem E2 taken from Ups and Downs, Student Book p.6. Reprinted from Mathematics in Context, copyright 1998, with permission from Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.

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