Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Dance Dance Transversal!

I came across this activity in the #MTBoS community through twitter.  The activity seemed very outside the box for me and my students and I was nervous to try it.  Many teachers have written about their experiences with implementing this lesson, but Jenn's is the most detailed and helpful that I found. 

The basic idea is this:  Students make a set of parallel lines and a tranversal with masking tape on the floor.  You review the angle pairs alternate interior, alternate exterior, same side interior, same side exterior, corresponding, vertical).  Have students place their feet on the appropriate angles in their tape diagram.

In the post mentioned above, Jenn shares some awesome videos with fun music and angle pairs.  It works just like Dance Dance Revolution from there. 

I tried it with my 11th graders as a review before we started parallel line proofs.  They had a grand time and really got into it.  I recorded one of the dances and we played it back the next day instead of doing our usual warm-up.  The kids got a kick out of seeing it, but made me promise not to post the video.  Here is a screenshot  instead :)



My kids actually preferred the slower songs because they decided to add spins and other fancy moves between the angle pair steps.


Check out Jenn's blog for resources on implementing this in your room.

2 comments:

  1. Jennifer, congrats to stepping (or dancing) outside your comfort zone!! Happy to hear your students enjoyed themselves.

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    1. I would certainly do it again. I don't know what I was afraid of! I like your tap tap trigonometry lesson too. I'll be borrowing that one as well.

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