Stadel's Transversals Activity

In geometry, we're studying pairs of angles formed by two lines and a transversal. I used Andrew Stadel's activity for this lesson and set up 9 stations on my extra long whiteboards with painter's tape as the lines. I taped the problem sets next to the stations on the board and left out some dry erase markers for each group. We started with examples of each of the pairs of angles: alternate interior, alternate exterior, consecutive interior, and corresponding. Then I paired them up alphabetically (first time this year I didn't let them chose their own partner), and set them to work. They also had to use vertical angles and linear pairs, which they learned last week. The first problem is a good basic problem that shows if they understand each angle pair. The second problem is quite challenging. After four classes of geometry (about 30 groups of students), only one had solved the second problem. However, it doesn't matter to me that they didn't solve it because they were still working with the angle pairs and they were challenged by it. I loved seeing the kids communicating with each other. I had to prompt some to work together, but overall it was great seeing them up at the board solving a problem with their peers. We'll have to review the angle pairs over the next couple of days, but it was a great start to the section. Thanks Andrew!