Definitions in Geometry update

I blogged a few years ago about starting geometry with developing definitions. I’ve made some changes since then, and I have additional ideas for next year that I want to remember.

I’ve found it more useful to start the school year introducing geometry as art, and developing a need for definitions as students struggle to describe the process to create their designs.

Once there is a need for developing agreed upon definitions for terms, I want to use this video to motivate how and why definitions develop:

To make a definition is to highlight and call attention to a feature or structural property. Historically this comes out of working on a problem, not as a prelude to it. The point is you don’t start with definitions, you start with problems. Nobody ever had an idea of a number being “irrational” until Pythagoras attempted to measure the diagonal of a square and discovered that it could not be represented as a fraction. Definitions make sense when a point is reached in your argument which makes the distinction necessary. To make definitions without motivation is more likely to cause confusion.

– Paul Lockhart, Lockharts Lament (p.22)

 

Then, students will develop their own terms and definitions (We ended up with of holes, tubes, and bubbles – you can see the fun thread here.) and we can see how complete it is by trying to classify different objects: a sock? a slice of Swiss cheese? a block of Swiss cheese? etc…

We may engage in some form of Attacks and Counterattacks to help students refine their definitions as the situation requires.

After this introduction of what definitions are and how they work, I will use examples and counterexamples for students to work in small groups and develop definitions of other geometry terms, as described here.