Nike Integrals:

As you know, when students are first learning to integrate, they have a difficult time knowing what to do and when to do it.

My experience has been that I teach them to do the easy ones - just pop the antiderivative - and they are ok. BUT... once I teach them to do u-subs, they want to do it on EVERYTHING!

I ask them to evaluate the following:

Yes... I've had students try to do a substitution!

But, I've learned how to break most of them of this... Right after I teach them the u-sub thing, I'll put an easy one (like the one above) on the overhead and ask them to do it. Oh, they struggle! They substitute. Nothing seems to work!

Then I walk over and pop out the answer and say, "This is a Nike integral... You JUST DO IT!"
They totally get into junk like this!

Then we go through the list of what to do when you see an integral:

1) See if it's a Nike integral (They all remember this.)
2) See if you can get out of trouble by using some easy algebra
3) Last resort (until they get the rest of the techniques): Try a U-sub.

Nike Factoring:

It's the same kind of thing as the integrals...

After teaching them the basic Algebra 2 kind of factoring, we make a plan-of-attach list:

1) See if you can take something (like a 2 or an x) out of everything.
2) If it has 4 terms, try factor by grouping.
3) If it has 3 terms (this will be a quadratic at this level)... Nike factor it (Then, when they look at me all puzzled, I say, "JUST DO IT!"

For both of these, the Nike thing allows me to refer back to this stuff easily and it gives the students a fun way to remember and know what to do.

I, for one, am going to be very bummed when Nike drops this slogan.

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