Topic 1

In this unit of work, we are going to look at straight line graphs. The suggested lessons teach the key ideas using a variety of different resources such as investigative tasks, card sorting, a bingo game and a treasure hunt.

For the teacher, straight line graphs lessons can be difficult to prepare. Whilst resources in this unit will support delivery of the content, you may also find it useful to access Graphing software such as Autograph or online resources such as Desmos or GeoGebra to create and display graphs for use during lessons. Having access to software that will draw graphs for them can save learners time and allows them to concentrate on investigating the connections between the equation of a graph and its properties.

Learners will be very familiar with seeing graphs in different contexts. However, this doesn’t mean that learners will find linear graphs easy to work with. It is really useful for learners if they see a range of graphs including graphs in context.

It can be hard to establish the connection between a graph and its equation and learners may struggle to appreciate that every point on the graph has coordinates that fit the equation. They often have difficulty working with the properties of a graph and although they understand gradients as a measure of steepness they can be confused if graphs are drawn on axes that have different scales. Learners need to work with a wide range of different scales so that they are used to interpreting them.

Relating the properties of a graph to its equation can also prove difficult. Learners commonly misidentify which part of the equation shows the gradient and which tells us the y-intercept. It is important that learners understand that gradient is not just the slope of the graph, it is also a rate of change – an idea that is important in later units of work, as well as in other subjects, such as science.

This unit of work is just one of several approaches that you could take to teaching this topic and should be adapted to suit the ability of your learners.