GeoGebra

Today, we finished our study of the derivative using GeoGebra. We found the derivative of many functions using a graphical method. The graphical method involved creating a point B that had the coordinates (x,m), where x is the x-coordinate of the point on the function that the tangent line goes through and m is the slope of the tangent line. Point B traced out our derivative and then we were able to guess the derivative from the function.

We found the following derivatives:


The next step will be to develop rules so that we can find the derivative without using the limit definition of the derivative or having to rely solely on graphs.