Visual Patterns provides students with a pattern and asks them to determine how the pattern is growing. The website provides an opportunity for students to notice patterns and determine a way to both articulate what is happening and determine an appropriate way to record the relationship. For some students, this may be finding an equation or rule that describes the pattern growing.
Structure and features
On this website, students:
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start by viewing a pattern and explaining what they notice the pattern to be
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attempt to explain the pattern
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attempt to record what is happening using numbers and symbols.
Teacher notes
- Algebra
- Pattern
- Problem solving
- Reasoning.
Teachers can encourage students to try and find more than one way to describe how the pattern grows. This connects well to Jo Boaler's work on Youcubed (there is a webpage on Our Learning SA linking to Youcubed).
Teachers can ask questions of the students, eg 'how many pieces do you think will be in the next shape? the 10th shape? or even the 50th shape?'.
