11.12.2012

Made 4 Math #20 Parallel Lines and Transversals Investigation


I was so excited last night when I created this lesson. I usually teach angle pairs with parallel lines and transversals with direct instruction and a lot of drill and kill. My instructional coach heavily encouraged me to use this song that she made up and I did two years ago...but the students mixed the words up and I think that actually made it worse.

My most successful way of teaching it has been to draw dotted lines connecting the two lines to literally create a box so students can visualize interior and exterior of the 'box', basically the way Sarah posted here.

My coach also recommended the shading and when I saw Sarah's picture I tried to come up with some type of colored pencil investigation. I ended up with something that we only colored once but that's okay. I was just really happy to try something new. I've been doing some independent investigations in Algebra II that worked well but there is something about these sophomores that they just never stop talking. One student finished this  whole packet in about 10 minutes while the majority of the class only got halfway through. They are either constantly talking or need my approval of every single answer they write down before they can go on. Any remedies?

I modeled one example on the board and had students give me names to label the angles rather than numbers. Then I just questioned them by saying which people are inside the box but on opposite sides of the transversal, and questions like that. They seemed to do well with it and for the most part did well on the investigation. They struggled the most with corresponding angles but that seems like a pretty common trend.

Tomorrow I plan to steal Sarah's flash card idea to start delving into angle measures and solving for x. Thanks for all your good ideas Sarah!

Last but not least, here is my investigation:


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