Category: vine

Animating Quadratic Patterns

Post author By natbanting
Post date April 15, 2021
1 Comment on Animating Quadratic Patterns

My first attempt at animating patterns was published on this blog in 2013. I suppose you can consider this post a long-overdue extension of the thinking there, however with a much-needed bump in production quality. In those old days, I hunched over a whiteboard with a collection of square tiles, creating six-second loops on the (now defunct) social media platform, Vine. Now, thanks largely to Berkeley Everett and his crash course on how to make animations in Keynote, the process has become much more streamlined.

linear functions pattern vine

Animating Patterns

There is a very strong emphasis on linear relations and functions in the junior maths in my province. In Grade 9, students begin by analyzing patterns and making sense of bivariate situations. The unit–which I love–concludes with writing rules to describe patterns and working with these equations to interpolate and extrapolate.

Grade 10 students continue along this path in the light of functions. There is a large degree of abstraction that occurs in a short amount of time, and droves of students abandon the conceptual background (pattern making) in favour of memorizing numerous formulas. (Slope formula, slope-point, 2-point-slope, slope-intercept, etc.)

**Some (much prettier) quadratic patterns, which are introduced in 11th Grade, are posted here**

data analysis probability ratios tasks vine

Spinner Data Task

The difference between what should happen and what does happen is a difficult distinction for students. They are so used to finding exact answers in the back of textbooks, that differing experimental results create an sense of uneasiness. At an early age (Grade 9 in my province) we begin to introduce students to the ideas of sampling and experimental probability.

The topic is usually approached with a project or survey of schoolmates. The results are then tallied and then used to create “probabilities” of various things such as favourite sports team, food, or colour. I love the philosophy behind the project approach; student initiative and autonomy is a powerful thing. I, however, don’t like that the experiment involves humans. Here’s why…

flipped classroom Khan Academy technology trigonometry vine

Ambiguous Case Vines

We all live in a consumer’s world, and we do an amazing job at acting entitled. These two factors have culminated in the invention of Vine–an app used to create six second, looping video clips.

Yet another way in which students can create, share, and network around media. Unfortunately, I feel like my students don’t often have an attention span longer than a Vine video.