Conference Workshop: 8:45 - 11:45 AM Old Main Smith Hall

An Inclination to Find the Height and Totally Tubular: Inquiry- and Discovery-based Collaborative Investigations of Geometry and Measurement

Robin Blankenship, Morehead State University

Abstract: Hands-on geometry and measurement activities will be delivered with pause to discuss NCTM Standards, classroom management techniques, and other issues relevant to mathematics teacher educators.  Audience will participate in an activity called ‘An Inclination to Find the Height’, making a clinometers out of easy to obtain materials, learning how to use it in a discovery-learning collaborative environment, and measuring the height of the room.  Extensions to the clinometer activity with emphasis on environmental applications will also be given.  The audience will then turn to a collaborative hands-on activity called ‘Totally Tubular’, which demonstrates various ways a toilet paper tube can be used to investigate geometry concepts in an inquiry-based setting, including definitions and formula development of attributes of a cylinder and various quadrilaterals.