Effective Lesson

Lots of lessons are effective because there are many different ways to teach. Some students learn through listening, others by seeing, and then others by doing. To me, the best way to get a student involved in learning is to learn by doing. If a student is physically involved with the learning, then they are sure to learn and remember the information better. This past year, I taught Transistion to Algebra. At the end of the year, there is a unit on geometry. Geometry is one of my favorite math subjects because it involves so many real life situations. In addition, with the students that I am teaching, this is what they need to know about. Most of these students will not go to college. So, they will need to know about real-life applications.

For example, they will need to know how to calculate the area of a room to see how much flooring to lay down. They may need to know how to measure lumber to cut it to an exact length. There is a lot of neat and fun stuff that you can do with geometry. For example, when you teach the Pythagorean Theorem, you can bring a ladder to school. Tell the students how far the ladder is up on the wall and how far away from the wall that it is. Then, the students calculate the length of the ladder. It is a great hands on assessment. This can be used to see how far a ladder needs to be extended to reach a certain point on a wall with so many feet from the wall. Furthermore, I developed a neat way to use measurement. I divided the class into partners. Each group was given a tape measure and a list of items in the room. It included everything from the floor, the door, to the clock on the wall. They had to measure these items, then calculuate the area, perimeter, or the circumference. It worked great. The kids greatly enjoyed it, and they were actually learning using hands on activities. Plus, they will remember this stuff because they were involved in the learning.