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“Chords of a circle” This lesson would be suitable for the NSW syllabus for arc and chords and to see the relationship between chord lengths and angles. The benefit of using the Geometer’s sketchpad software in this lesson is that resizing of the circle, chords and angles are all done with the movement of the mouse. It is an easy way for students to visualise the relationships without having to draw a whole heap of diagrams. A little lenghy to originally set up but it wouldn’t be a problem if student were familiar with the program. Would be easier if students used a printed version to follow to set up the sketch. A big tick for visual learners. 

How could the lesson be improved?

Are the instructions for the lesson clear?

The English language contains terms of expression which on a simple surface level appear odd, however they make sense when the commonly accepted meaning is understood. Such an example is a river going “down” stream when it is flowing north which is generally thought of as going “up”. Similar examples exist within the mathematics world of expression, such an example is: which is smaller -1000 or 0.00001? Mathematics uses words from the English language and redefines them to describe a particular meaning, idea, or concept. So while English is used it has certain ulterior meaning, dependant upon the math context.     

A problem that arises here is that students who are learning new a “maths language” are not yet familiar with the commonly understood meaning of specific terms. This results in students creating misunderstandings as they incorrectly apply their current understanding of “English Words” to “English Maths Words”.

The webquest “Buying your First House” http://questgarden.com/45/79/1/070120175316/ is about performing calculations to determine cost of buying a home with various options such as with or without a deposit and includes budgets for running a household. This is one of a collection of webquests at http://webquest.org/search/index.php  

Efficiency Expert :This project is short and to the point and has clear outcomes  

XXX The Affiliator : A single person could do this. It doesn’t require discussion or collaboration.  

The Altitudinist : High level thinking is required as an analysis is required by students to determine the best options   

The Technophile : While the font and colouring are not good, it does have useful links which all work ok.