Session 3 November 14, 2007
Rebecca McGraw advocates the use of Geometer's Sketchpad to provide a vehicle for student investigation. Students should be introduced to how the program functions, then be given an open-ended but well-stated problem or exploration to consider.
Participants compared drawings to constructions of quadrilaterals. They explored the use of transformations to create rhombuses, squares, and isosceles trapezoids. The group shared multiple strategies for creating the assigned constructions. They reinforced their understandings of the properties of special polygons.
After sharing a delicious meal catered by the University dining services, participants explored triangles formed by 2 vertices which represent consecutive vertices of a square, and the third tiangle vertex is a point in the interior of the square. Creative constructions were used to locate isosceles triangles, right triangles, and the equilateral triangle. The investigation was extended to determine the probabilities of choosing a point at random to create the special triangles.
Some of the AIMS Standards addressed include:
1.3.1 Solve grade appropriate problems using estimation.
2.2.2 Solve contextual situations using probability.
4.1.1 Create a model that demonstrates basic geometric relationships such as parallelism, perpendicularity, and congruence.
4.2.1 Identify the planar geometric figure that is the result of a given rigid transformation.
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| Geometer's Sketchpad> |
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| The group explored constructions using GSP |
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