The Geometer's Sketchpad: A Workshop for Teachers
Description
On Saturday, February 12th, Nancee Klaff, a Valley High School geometry teacher, led a workshop for teachers on ways to incorporate The Geometer's Sketchpad (GSP) into their classrooms. GSP is an award winning dynamic geometry software package designed for students from grade 5 through college that Ms. Klaff feels can be a valuable tool for teachers.
Ms. Klaff uses GSP because it gives her students an opportunity to discover the theorems in the high school geometry text rather than simply copying those theorems down and trying to memorize them. Ms. Klaff also believes GSP helps students learn to make and test conjectures because test cases can be created quickly and easily.
Even though GSP was available to all teachers at Valley High School , Ms. Klaff was the only teacher using GSP with any regularity. The other teachers did not know how to use GSP and did not feel comfortable incorporating an unfamiliar tool into their lessons. While considering conducting a training session for the other mathematics teachers at her school, Ms. Klaff learned that other area schools were receiving GSP through TEAM-Math. She then decided to offer a GSP workshop through TEAM-Math.