Matthessteaching

I tried to teach my girlfriend Megan, the calculus concept of derivatives. This process of evaluating slopes of functions would appeal to someone who has the mathematical/logical intelligence. Megan has high levels of intelligence in the areas of music, intrapersonal skill, and linguistics. She's also strong in the mathematical/logical intelligence however she doesn't like it. Here skills in math will make it easier for her to understand, and through the use of clear words, a song that details the process and reflection time I believe it will be easy for Megan to fully grasp the basics of the concept. However the struggle may arise in that she would rather do ANYTHING besides have me try to teach her advanced math concepts. I believe the efforts were a success. I began by graphing the function and explaining the steps of deriving the function. I used clear words and an easy to follow list that helped Megan to understand the order of the steps. We then attempted to make a "fun" mnemonic song out of the process. After the list and the song we took a break and watched a movie, after which we came back to the calculus learning/fun session (Megan disagrees and wants me to take out the word fun). At this point I prepared an example of an easily differentiable equation. With a little help from the list, song, and myself she easily solved the function