Lesson Plan: The Product Rule Mathematics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to find the derivative of a function using the product rule.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- understand the concepts behind the derivation of the product rule (although recalling the derivation is not required),
- use the product rule of differentiation to find the derivative, , where is a product of two functions,
- use the product rule of differentiation to evaluate the derivative of a function at a point, , where is a product of two functions,
- understand how to generalize the product rule to find the derivative of the product of three (or more) functions.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the power rule of differentiation.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- applying the product rule to quotients,
- deriving the quotient rule by modifying the product rule,
- the chain rule of differentiation.