Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Related Rates 2.0

What are Related Rates?
http://www.donself.com/images/confused-baby.bmp

A related rate problem has a few qualities:

a. 2 changing quantities
b. Hopefully enough information about those quantities

c. And (as with most Calculus problems) asks you to figure out the rate at which on is changing


There are a few tricks to helping you solve these most complex problems:

1. DRAW A PICTURE!
You might think your too cool for school... but guess what? Your not.
Drawing a picture gives you time to organize and think, which could help with a breakthrough.

2. Identify the quantities
Determine and label, which quantities can change (variables) and which are constants?
Again, keeping these organized is your road to success.

3. Algebra, Algebra, Algebra...
Write your equation... remember what you learned in Algebra? You should!

4. Calculus... your new friend
Use your newly sharpened Calculus skills to differentiate the equation. This should be easy as pie... right?

5. Find the rates of change
Dissect the problem. Find out what quantities could be rates of change (I'm talking about units here!)

6. Substitute!
Here comes the fun. Now you can work with your sweet equation to answer the problem.

Wait! Don't forget... this was a word problem if I remember correctly. Which means......?

Answer in a complete sentence, with units of course.

This is a good site to practice... in case you feel you need to work on your skills.

I know that this is the kind of problems we were doing last week, but just a little play by play to help anyone who is still confused out.



Don't forget the take home quiz assigned in class... all about Related Rates.

And we have a new final project about Related Rates coming up, so start brainstorming and coming up with fun creative ideas.

The next scribe will be Blitzen.

http://www.timtim.com/public/images/drawings/large/Skier.gif
-Skirdude-

9 comments:

  1. This is a short but neat scribe post with wonderful colors to highlight the critical parts. Explain step by step is really helpful and clear. This post for sure is a great tool for reviewing or learning. Few questions, for the part 4 “Calculus…your new friend”, I think it would be better if you add the name of the certain skill called “implicit differentiation”. The video is sweet. Thanks for posting that video. Finally, the picture of the baby is cute. But I think for math, the more we think, the more clear I get.

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  2. This is an amazing post, they keep getting better and better. I loved all of the pictures,they make the page super fun, also the use of color made it easy to differentiate each step of the solving process as well as made it a visually appealing post. The video was very helpful for watching how to solve a problem, but it might have been nice to see an example problem on the post(maybe with the general descriptions), despite this I think your post is most excellent! E for sure!

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  3. Nice job with the post! I really liked how you wnet through each step of the solving process and the video was very helpful. I agree with Tubby, that it would have been really nice to see an example problem where you then used the steps you just explained to solve it. The colors and pictures were very nice as well.

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  4. This is great. You included each step of how to solve the related rates problem and at the end, you provided the video demonstrating basic related rates problem. Each step is clearly labeled with different color, ans separated by lines. It would been little better if you provided actual example following with your explanation of how to solve the related rates problem.

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  5. First of all, I love the picture at the beginning. Your usage of color in this post helps make the steps clear and defined. I like how you don't just name each step, but go on to describe them in order to give us a better understanding of what precisely to do. The link to the site of practice problems was really helpful to me as well and I like how it has the solutions readily available. My only suggestion would be to maybe include one of the problems from that site, or something like that and solve it using the steps to solving a related rates problem. Awesome post!

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  6. Great job!!!
    There's not much criticism I have for this post.
    I actually missed class this day and this post was a complete and total help for me not only to understand what I missed in class, but also to understand how to do the homework. I liked the colors and it might have been supplemented by an example. But overall, great job.

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  7. Nice scribe post. I was helpful that you put all the steps for solving a related rates problem, the colors make it really clear. Also thanks for reminding everyone to use units in their answer because I know I forget to do that a lot. Although you didn't have an example of your own, the video is really helpful.

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  8. I enjoyed this post a lot, it was simple and organized which there is a lot to say for. I think that the day you were scribing for might not have had much to scribe, so in that case you did a very good job bringing out the key points of that day. An example problem might have been nice, but I don't think that is is necissary. I think that You did a fantastic job, and your use of colors was not over the top, but they were there to help you, good job.

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  9. Hey Skirdude!
    I enjoyed reading your post. Very short, and yet very clear. After all that have been said, I feel there is not more that I can add. As many people said, a mathematical example could have been more helpful, for it would provide a better understanding than then one provided by words.
    Also, a little comment on your baby picture at the beginning, "the more I think, the more confused I get" but also, "the more I get confused, the more we learn, and the more we discover/understand"
    Great Job!

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