Education Technology


Preparing for Proofs

Activity Overview

This activity introduces students to the terms of hypothesis, conclusion, conditional, converse, inverse, contrapositive, and biconditional using popular advertising slogans. A learning check activity is used to check their understanding following the activity.

Before the Activity

Have old magazines and newspapers on hand to help students who have trouble coming up with a common advertising slogan on their own.

During the Activity

Students, in small groups, will identify a slogan of a well-known company or product and make a hypothesis and conclusion in the form of a conditional statement, its converse, inverse, contrapositive and, if applicable, the biconditional. After two of these they will make up a company and slogan---again applying the statements. There will be a learning check activity using slogans to determine the understanding. Follow-up checks may be necessary if students are struggling with the concept. Finally a learning check activity involving a math concept will be applied.

After the Activity

Review student results and, as a class, discuss questions that appeared to be more challenging. Re-teach concepts as necessary.