Today’s Blog is an exploration that will lead up to the Mean Value Theorem (MVT) and, I hope, help your students better understand the MVT and why it is true. While you may do this by hand, using a graphing calculator will make things way easier. This is good calculator practice and can be done…
This is a re-post and update of the second in a series of posts from last year. It contains links to posts on this blog about the definition of the derivative for your reference in planning. Other updated post on the 2019 CED will come throughout the year, hopefully, a few weeks before you get…
Unit 5 covers the application of derivatives to the analysis of functions and graphs. Reasoning and justification of results are also important themes in this unit. (CED – 2019 p. 92 – 107). These topics account for about 15 – 18% of questions on the AB exam and 8 – 11% of the BC questions.…
Being a believer in the Rule of Four, I have been trying for years to find a good visual (graphical) illustration of why or how the Chain Rule for derivatives works. This very simple example is the best I could come up with. Consider the function . (See figure 1. A tangent segment at is drawn.)…
Unit 3 covers the Chain Rule, differentiation techniques that follow from it, and higher order derivatives. (CED – 2019 p. 67 – 77). These topics account for about 9 – 13% of questions on the AB exam and 4 – 7% of the BC questions. Topics 3.1 – 3.6 Topic 3.1 The Chain Rule. Students learn…
An important theorem concerning derivatives is this: If a function f is differentiable at x = a, then f is continuous at x = a. The proof begins with the identity that for all And therefore, Since both sides are finite, the function is continuous at x = a. The converse of this theorem is…
Unit 2 contains topics rates of change, difference quotients, and the definition of the derivative (CED – 2019 p. 51 – 66). These topics account for about 10 – 12% of questions on the AB exam and 4 – 7% of the BC questions. Topics 2.1 – 2.4: Introducing and Defining the Derivative Topic 2.1:…
