1 Investigating Special Right Triangles and Area of a Regular Polygon Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Mathematics Grades: Grades 7–8 Professional Commentary: This 3-lesson unit engages students in investigating special right triangle properties for both 30°– 60°– 90° and 45°– 45°– 90° triangles. Students develop the general formula for the area of any regular polygon using Geometer’s Sketchpad® and apply special right triangle properties to find the area of equilateral triangles, squares, and hexagons.... 2 Area Formulas: Finding the Area of Irregular Figures Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Mathematics Grades: Grades 6–7 Professional Commentary: Students will estimate the areas of highly irregular shapes and will use decomposition to calculate the areas of irregular polygons. A sheet of regular polygonal shapes is provided to cut out and cover the irregular shapes.... 3 Understanding Ratios of Areas of Inscribed Figures Using Interactive Diagrams Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Mathematics Grades: Grades 7–12 Professional Commentary: This NCTM E-Example features four student tasks along with teacher support material about using interactive figures with students to explore the connections between algebra and geometry. This site features an applet that students can use to explore an interesting quantitative relationship between the area of a polygon and the area of an inscribed figure formed by... 4 An Update on Reading in the Content Areas: Social Constructionist Dimensions Resource Type: Professional Resources Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 8–12 Professional Commentary: An article that both summarizes and comments on studies aimed at understanding sociocultural dimensions in teaching and learning, this professional resource draws attention to the need to foster critical media literacy with adolescents. Included, too, are links to websites where additional information on these issues can be found.... 5 Teacher Self Assessment Planning Tool for Content Area Literacy Support Resource Type: Professional Resources Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–12 Professional Commentary: This tool is part of CCSSO’s Adolescent Literacy Toolkit. It is designed for use after completing the Teacher Self-Assessment Tool for Content Area Literacy Support.... 6 Discovering Pick’s Formula Resource Type: Content Supports -- Activities and rich problems Discipline: Mathematics Grades: Grades 6–9 Professional Commentary: Students use various strategies to find the areas of different polygons drawn on dot paper. After a discussion about what variables could possibly be used in a formula to calculate the areas, students gather data about the given polygons and many others.... 7 Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas: Getting to the Core of Middle and High School Improvement Resource Type: Professional Resources Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 7–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: This professional resource is the 2007 publication of a 48-page pdf full-text literacy report from the Alliance for Excellent Education. The report emphasizes that the "real goal [of content literacy instruction] is to help all students master the knowledge, procedures, and skills of the academic disciplines that rule the secondary school curriculum, and which serve as the... Resource Type: Content Supports Discipline: Mathematics Grades: Grades 7–10 Professional Commentary: This applet demonstrates how the Greek mathematician, Archimedes, approximated the value of pi by inscribing and circumscribing polygons about a circle. Student can use the slide bar at the bottom of the applet to increase the number of sides, n, of inscribed and circumscribed polygons for two circles. The first circle is a unit circle which has has an area of pi.... Resource Type: Content Supports -- Activities and rich problems Discipline: Mathematics Grades: Grades 8–12 Professional Commentary: Find the percentage of a given diagram that is shaded. This problem is one of Stella's Stunners, a collection of challenging and entertaining mathematical problems to intrigue students in grades 6 - 12. The Stella problems are ideal for promoting inquiry, problem solving, and classroom discussion of key mathematical ideas.... Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Mathematics Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: The Stomachion is an ancient tangram-type puzzle. Believed by some to have been created by Archimedes, it consists of 14 polygons (triangles, quadrilaterals, and pentagons) cut from a square.... |