options: Operations & Algebra: students learn to solve problems using algebraic thinking and operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They may learn to identify and explain arithmetic patterns, evaluate or manipulate numerical expressions, and reason with equations and inequalities.

Functions: students learn to define, use, and evaluate functions to model relationships between quantities.

Statistics & Probability: students learn to analyze and produce data distributions, and build understanding of univariate and bivariate data. They learn to interpret data, make statistical inferences, justify conclusions, understand rules of probability, and use probability to make decisions.

Number & Operations - Fractions: students learn to understand fractions as numbers and may work with them using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Counting & Cardinality: students learn to know number names and the count sequence, count to tell the number of objects, and compare numbers.

Measurement & Data: students learn to work with data and measure attributes such as time, money, length, area, and volume. They may learn to compare measurements to operations and convert between different units of measure.

Ratios & Proportional Relationships: students learn to recognize, describe, represent, and reason with ratios, rates, proportional relationships, and percent.

Number Systems and Quantity: students learn to understand the complex number system and reason quantitatively.

Number & Operations in Base Ten: students learn to work with the base-ten system and build place value understanding.

Modeling: students learn to choose and use appropriate mathematics and statistics to analyze real-world empirical situations, improve decisions, and report on their conclusions and the reasoning behind them.

Geometry: students learn to classify geometric figures by their properties, and understand and compare the relationships between them. Students develop and use formulas to compute lengths, areas, and volumes, and they use transformations to generate new shapes and compare existing ones. Geometry can be studied with and without coordinates.
problem_activity: Warm-up
This warm-up picks up where the previous lesson ended asking students to calculate the sum of the first 50 terms of two different sequences, but with less scaffolded support. The goal of this activity is to build student flexibility in using the formula for the sum and thinking about the terms in a sequence by comparing two related sequences, specifically, two sequences where one has values double that of the first.
Monitor for students who identify the sum of the second sequence in different ways, such as by
thinking of it as a sequence with the same
\(r\)
and
\(n\)
values as the first but a different
\(a\)
value.
noticing it must be twice the sum of the first.
seeing it as 1 plus the sum of the first sequence, only where the first sequence has
\(n=49\)
instead of
\(n=50\)
.
Student Facing
Recall that for any geometric sequence starting at
\(a\)
with a common ratio
\(r\)
, the sum
\(s\)
of the first
\(n\)
terms is given by
\(s=a\frac{1-r^{n}}{1-r}\)
. Find the approximate sum of the first 50 terms of each sequence:
\(\frac12\)
,
\(\frac14\)
,
\(\frac18\)
,
\(\frac{1}{16}\)
, . . .
1,
\(\frac12\)
,
\(\frac14\)
,
\(\frac18\)
,
\(\frac{1}{16}\)
, . . .
Student Response
Teachers with a valid work email address can
click here to register or sign in
for free access to Student Response.
Activity Synthesis
Once students are agreed on the
\(a\)
,
\(r\)
, and
\(n\)
values for the first sequence, invite previously selected students to share their work for the second sequence. While students describe their thinking, record any expressions used for all to see. If not brought up by a student for the second strategy, display the relationship
\(1 \frac{1-\left(\frac12\right)^{n}}{1-\frac12} = 2 \boldcdot \frac12 \frac{1-\left(\frac12\right)^{n}}{1-\frac12}\)
as one way to understand why the second sequence has a sum twice as large.


correct_option_index: 0

9