The Great Result: Pt. 2

this blog is a second attempt to an earlier post "The Great Result:"

As I spoke about it in the Celtic Knots blog post, our school has a "Flex" block period where students are placed in classrooms based on data collected from screener assessments. I am able to work with the "high flyers" and we so some enrichment to get them thinking about math beyond the walls of our classroom. I am able to work with students on topics they might not see.

I was bound and determined to have them have the "shock 'n awe" of how amazing the Euler Line was when I first saw it in my MAT 641 class at GVSU. We got the computers out and the students have the Geogebra program on it already so I was going to be able to "kill two birds with one stone." The student could get an introduction to both geoebra and would be able to see math in new way with a new appreciation.

I did a great job of hyping up the concept and gave it my best sales pitch telling them they where going to be "mind blown" by the end of class. So we began, they where having an enjoyable time working with geogebra and creating the different centers for their given triangle. Students were very exited about finding the orthocenter, curcumcenter, and centroid. They had their struggles with geogebra but were very optimisc about what was going on and truly enjoyed the learning the process on finding different centers to a simple  triangle. They loved the hands on experience with manipulating the different vertices of the triangle and they would comment on how all the lines would move. They like to see how each center points always worked, how all the lines would change, but the 3 points would but still hold true to their intended purpose.

Then it was time to deliver the big moment, the culmination of the big sales pitch. Students had started to see it after the three points where found and they began to move the triangle into different forms. we then created a line through the three points and continued to manipulate the triangle and we did notice it always works.

Now I didn't receive the overwhelming joy I was hoping like they had just won a state championship but I did spark a little awe in their eyes. A few students thought it was pretty cool that three seemingly independent points of a triangle would form a straight line. So I was relatively excited I had made a few believers. We would continuing the next time we meant I was determined to make more believers.

The next Flex Block class the student continued with questions about the Euler Line so we took second look at it. We improved our geogebra skill by adding icons that hide/showed lines, plus we also introduced the nine point circle. When we where done we noticed the center of the nine point circle also fell on the Euler Line. I had made a few more converts! From where I had began, I made a good majority of my student believe that math was something greater that what was taught in a classroom.

As I continue to become a better mathematician I am in awe about how math is intertwine in everything around us. One thing that I believe I need to do as an educator is pass that love onto my students. Let them know that everything around them is related in some why to what we do in class.  Give them the passion they deserve.