Finishing Up the Similar Triangles Project
Objective
Big Idea
Circle Up: What do you need to do today?
How can you know if your theoretical values are accurate?
To review the big idea of the Similar Triangles Project, I post a photograph of the chart that we used in the previous class, and I ask for volunteers to walk us through the process of testing the viability of each answer.
If I'm teaching two different sections, I might have one section check the results of the other, cultivating a friendly little rivalry between the two classes. I might also post the work of last year's class for comparison to ours. We have a spirited discussion about how everything worked out, and this is a nice opportunity to students to share their conceptions and to surface their misconptions of what we've done so far.
I also have some notes prepared on today's Prezi. I might use these, I might not: they're here if I realize they'll be useful. On each slide, there are questions to guide conversations about each of the SLTs for this project, as well as the "Fascinating Chart". There are also a few basic example problems for finding unknown measurements in a right triangle; if I realize that students are ahead, or if they ask for reminders of how they originally learned to use the trig ratios, I might share some of these.
Work Time: The Similar Triangles Project
Closing: Group Question
- List all of the properties you know about similar triangles.
- How certain are you that your theoretical values are accurate? Why?
Now that students have had the chance to work on their projects, I pose this pair of questions and ask them to confer with their colored rectangle groups as they answer. I collect their responses as they leave.
