1st POST: Why am I here? The Proof

So I have been wanting to start a blog.  Here it is.   The past few years I have been going to blogs to reflect and get ideas from other math teachers.  I want to record some of those travels.... a blog is like a photo album of teaching.  A record.  Maybe someone will come here and learn something or get inspired.

I teach at The Hasten Hebrew Academy of Indianapolis.   This is a small private jewish day school on the north side of Indy.  I am the head of the middle school and teach mathematics to children in grades 4-8.  My classes include 6th grade math, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, and Geometry.

Blogs are full of ideas for new activities and good problems to solve.  This past month I have been introducing proofs to my Geometry class.  The book seemed too prescribed and dull.  There is almost nothing in the book to help students understand what a proof is.....and very little variety beyond two column geometric proofs.  I was able to gather some good thoughts on how to present my students some great ideas about proofs.  John Benson, a former colleague I used to teach with in Evanston, had some great ideas on his blog, Angles of Reflection.  This blog has the best general math teaching advice.

As I hunted around and found great ideas for helping students see the power of proof.  Students really enjoyed these WORDs activities.  They saw how a set of rules could be made for us to follow.  Deductive reasoning became a fun game, a logic puzzle.

We then looked at proofs that we could not solve.  When I heard my students explain what they needed to do in order to solve I felt like progress had been made.   Then we looked at proofs that were deceiving, ones they lead you down the wrong road.  Here are some examples.

I will have to wait and see if this helps create a foundation in "proof in geometry" as we will me doing proofs all year long