Quote to discuss: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Prof. Al Bartlett (Physicist) http://www.albartlett.org/
Common Core Focus: Explain how the definition of the meaning of rational exponents follows from extending the properties of integer exponents to those values, allowing for a notation for radicals in terms of rational exponents (N.RN.1)
Homework Resources:
Ready -
This is a review of material learned back in the 1st quarter this year. Note that the instructions give a lot of clues by pointing out that we're dealing with discrete SEQUENCES instead of continuous FUNCTIONS. Also, the instructions remind us of the initial two types of sequences we studied; (1) arithmetic [a growth pattern where the previous term is built upon by a common term using addition or subtraction], and (2) geometric [a growth pattern where the previous term is built upon by a common number using multiplication or division].
A possible strategy for problems 1-5:
Arithmetic: an = d(n-1) + a1 where d is the common difference and a1 is the first term
Geometric: an = a1(r)n-1 where a1 is the first term and r is the common multiple
A possible strategy for problems 6-11: