Linear Equation Posters

 As you know, I recently attended a co-teaching conference.  Once of the things that I learned from the conference was to get the students up and moving if possible.  That's how this poster activity was born.

I created 6 posters where difference pieces of information were given on each one.  The black ink is what I wrote.  When the students came into the room that day I had the posters is different locations.  I put the students into groups of 2 or 3.  Each group received a different color marker, this way I know which group wrote what.

The students had 2 minutes to pick one of the five empty rectangles and fill it in as it related to what I wrote in black.  

Then the students moved to the next poster and filled in one of the four rectangles that were empty.  

As they moved from poster to poster, they were also instructed to look at the work of previous groups and make (appropriate) comments or corrections.  Writing "you're an idiot" is not appropriate.

Given: x- and y-intercept

Given: Slope-Intercept Form

Given: Situation

Given: Standard Form

Given: a table of values

Given:  the graph of a line

Reflection:

Pros:  The students were up and moving, I could see what they were writing,  I could easily see and hear misunderstandings, and the students were having good discussions about algebra.

Cons:  I put the posters too close together because my wall space is limited.  Next time I will make use of my table.  Just because they're posters doesn't mean they have to hang on the wall.  I had the posters about 4 feet apart, but this meant the entire class was crowed in the front of my room.

One misunderstanding that showed its ugly head -->  Students didn't know the different between the x-intercept and identifying what x represents (such as the situation).