Tag: textbooks

I don’t love this textbook task.

Too many substeps before students return to the question: what’s the relationship between the length of the sides of a right triangle?

“For each right triangle, write an addition statement…”? C’mon!

But I’m hesitant to join the down with textbooks revolution; I don’t want to associate myself with the back to basics movement. So in conversations where the suggested alternative is more worked examples, I soften my criticism.

Besides, it gives me something to modify. Instead of completing the table, I could challenge students to find right triangles and ask “What do you notice?”

One problem: this requires “attend to precision” to do some heavy lifting.

This leads to some truly awkward feedback: “Are you sure it’s a right triangle? You might want to measure again.”

GeoGebra may provide a solution.