PROCEEDINGS OF THE 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2019
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Reasoning covariationally to distinguish between quadratic and exponential growth
Page: 1048
In this report, we present preliminary findings from clinical interviews examining inservice teachers’ understandings of quadratic growth and exponential growth. The purpose of this pilot study is to investigate how teachers may naturally leverage covariational reasoning to distinguish between the two types of growth. In this report, we first present relevant constructs pertaining to teachers’ covariational reasoning and then describe one task we used in clinical interviews. We then present preliminary findings regarding how teachers’ leveraged (or did not leverage) covariational reasoning as they addressed this task to differentiate between quadratic and exponential growth. We conclude with preliminary implications and questions regarding how these preliminary findings may have implications for a larger study with pre-service secondary mathematics teachers.