Using Graphical Misrepresentation to Stimulate Student Interest
Will Hansen · Mathematics Teacher Learning and Teaching PK-12 · 1994
The graphing calculator is a wonderful tool that can be used to generate visual representations to help develop a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. In addition, the graphing calculator can be used to generate startling misrepresentations that can be thought-provoking. Whenever we can surprise our students with counterintuitive results—Why did that happen?—their increased interest level presents an exceptional learning opportunity. This article gives a few examples of how misrepresentations of periodic fun ctions on the Texas Instruments TI-81 graphing calculator can be used to enhance the understanding of periodicity and the discrete nature of the graphing screen. Although the illustrations use the TI-81, similar results can be obtained with other graphing calculators or computer-based graphing utilities.