In our presentation we will show how technology enables us to improve the teaching and learning of linear functions at the middle school level. Through various classroom activities that involve technology such as dynamic geometry software, graphing calculators and Excel, students explore functions and discover basic facts about them on their own. Students then work with real life data and on real life problems to draw graphs and form linear models that correspond to given situations as well as draw inferences based on their models. Participants will receive complete classroom materials for the unit on linear functions.

In our presentation we will show how technology enables us to improve the teaching and learning of linear functions at the middle school level. Through various classroom activities that involve technology such as dynamic geometry software, graphing calculators and Excel, students explore functions and discover basic facts about them on their own. Students then work with real life data and on real life problems to draw graphs and form linear models that correspond to given situations as well as draw inferences based on their models. Participants will receive complete classroom materials for the unit on linear functions.

Previous research has investigated the relationship between organizational tenure and performance by focusing primarily on organizational tenure of the individual employee. We propose that this approach is limited because organizational tenure should be conceptualized as relating to multiple entities including teams and their leaders. As predicted, analysis of two objective performance indicators of 1,753 employees working with 250 leaders of natural work teams in a financial services company revealed that, beyond employee organizational tenure, team leader organizational tenure and team organizational tenure diversity had positive incremental effects on employee performance. Moreover, the positive impact of employee organizational tenure was less pronounced in teams with high rather than low tenure diversity. Our findings suggest that organizations’ capacity to promote performance will be limited if they focus on organizational tenure of an individual, while neglecting the ways in which performance is shaped by organizational tenure related to multiple entities within a team.