MathChat

Remember the Difference in LOOK between Positive and Negative Slope

Some ideas just slap you in the face.

I got slapped this morning as I was flying home from LA to Albuquerque. Those little cocktail napkins they hand out with “beverage service” often give me the urge to write. So this morning, nerdily enough, as I sipped my orange juice at 30,000 feet above the Salton Sea, I worked on figuring out a better way to help students grasp the difference in look between positive and negative slope.

That’s when I got “slapped.”

First, you must realize that I use the three-letter abbreviations of POS and NEG for positive and negative. Do some of you use these as well? I mention this because those abbreviations hold the key. You have to use the first letter of the NEG abbreviation and the last letter of the POS abbreviation.

Let’s start with NEG.

The first letter of NEG is, of course, “N.” But look what I noticed …

The trick for POS is a tad more complicated. But I’m hopeful it will work.

If you test it out, please let me know what you find. I’m interested to know. Thanks!