Function Patterns Homework Help

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Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of "Function Patterns," which appears to be a topic in a class designed to prepare future teachers for secondary education material. The original poster expresses confusion regarding the definition and application of function patterns, particularly in relation to a problem involving the half-life of a tracking substance.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Conceptual clarification, Assumption checking

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants discuss the recognition of patterns in function values, specifically how increasing a variable affects the output. Questions are raised about the applicability of these patterns to specific values, such as M(21), and the tediousness of finding previous values.

Discussion Status

Some participants are exploring the concept of function patterns and questioning their common usage. There is a recognition of the relationship between the input variable and the output values, but confusion remains regarding specific applications and interpretations of the patterns.

Contextual Notes

There is a mention of a half-life of a tracking substance being about 2 hours, which may be relevant to the function patterns being discussed. Additionally, the original poster has provided a visual reference to aid in understanding the problem context.

hammonjj
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Homework Statement


So I'm taking a class that's purpose is to go over, in great detail, the concepts that secondary students learn. It's intended to prepare teachers for the material they will have to teach.

Unfortunately, we are working on something called "Function Patterns" and I have no clue what they are. I've Googled this thing until I hit the end of the internet and am still lost. I'm sure this is super simple, but I have no idea what he is talking about.

I've included a picture of the whole page, so I don't miss showing anything!

http://imgur.com/uwk71

Thanks in advance!
 
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hammonjj said:

Homework Statement


So I'm taking a class that's purpose is to go over, in great detail, the concepts that secondary students learn. It's intended to prepare teachers for the material they will have to teach.

Unfortunately, we are working on something called "Function Patterns" and I have no clue what they are. I've Googled this thing until I hit the end of the internet and am still lost. I'm sure this is super simple, but I have no idea what he is talking about.

I've included a picture of the whole page, so I don't miss showing anything!

http://imgur.com/uwk71

Thanks in advance!
I don't think the term "function pattern" is in common usage, but the idea is to recognize patterns in the function values. In this problem you're supposed to recognize that each time you increase the t value by 2 (hours), you halve the previous value of M(t). As stated in the problem, the half-life of the tracking substance is about 2 hours.
 
Mark44 said:
I don't think the term "function pattern" is in common usage, but the idea is to recognize patterns in the function values. In this problem you're supposed to recognize that each time you increase the t value by 2 (hours), you halve the previous value of M(t). As stated in the problem, the half-life of the tracking substance is about 2 hours.

I guess I'm still confused them, question C asks why you can't use this "pattern" to to find M(21), but you clearly can. It's tedious, but you just have to find all of the previous values.

Thoughts?
 
hammonjj said:
I guess I'm still confused them, question C asks why you can't use this "pattern" to to find M(21), but you clearly can. It's tedious, but you just have to find all of the previous values.

Thoughts?

Numbers on the left column are integers.
 

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