Inquiry based learning will the be strategy employed to teach the coordinate geometry unit. The following statement from Stephenson provides a solid justification for using this method, "The power of an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning is its potential to increase intellectual engagement and foster deep understanding through the development of a hands-on, minds-on and ‘research-based disposition’ towards teaching and learning. Inquiry honours the complex, interconnected nature of knowledge construction, striving to provide opportunities for both teachers and students to collaboratively build, test and reflect on their learning."
How will I engage and motivate my learners to learn?
8th grade students like to feel like they are in control or have choice in what affects them. Providing them a series of choices and responsibility for their learning will allow them to engage instruction without feeling like they are forced. The choices are carefully calculated and will entail the same amount of work regardless of which path they choose.
What is it that the students will learn and in what order?
- Students will be grouped in pairs or threes, and will get to select a topic from a list to introduce to the class.
- Each topic will have a group activity which might include activities from the following site: Learn Alberta
- Each group will need to find a real life example of a coordinate grid and how it is used, what units are measured, etc.
- Several problems will be provided to the students to choose from which involve dilation and scale factors such as:
- Find the dimensions required for the purchase of a banner for the front of the school
- Discover the cheapest way to feed the school pizza from the local pizza place using the cost and dimensions of their pizza pies
- Find in real life examples of reflections, translations and develop a poster describing the transformations
How will I know that the students have learned the material? And how will I let learners know whether they've learned?
- A rubric for the topic introduction will be provided to gauge student performance as well as other rubrics for the projects and problems selected by the students.
- Exit tickets will be used to test their knowledge for the material explored that day
- District and Campus Check Points will be administered by the math department.
- Using a message board will allow the students to reflect and provide the teacher an opportunity to give personal feedback to each post.
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