Is this thing still on?
Whew, it's been a while. I had the chance to work with a teacher recently on doing something different with the triangle congruence theorems, and I wanted to share the materials here. If you are teaching this unit coming up, I would love to hear what you're doing to try something new, take a risk, and get your students curious. This is a short post, but hopefully it will be helpful for someone out there.
First, here is a Desmos Activity Builder I created to get students to realize the need for markings on polygons. I would always have students who wondered aloud about why they would need to know how to mark a shape, so this provides some meaning.
Next up, I used Google Slides and PearDeck to create a slide deck that would allow for students to show their thinking and for me, the teacher, to see how each student (or group) responds to the prompts. The goal here is to get students to see the value in noticing a pattern and setting up their own congruence.
Finally, because I really believe in getting students to own their thinking as much as possible, I am hoping that students will do this lesson to bring everything together and really understand why it is so important to have congruence at all.
As an assessment, students can prove that they understand the triangle congruence theorems in a way that is comfortable for them using CYOA, which is a ton of fun and I highly recommend it!
So, teacher of Geometry, how do YOU create meaningful experiences around triangle congruence for your students?
Happy "All Of The Trianglez" Fishing