It has often been said that love happens when you least expect it, and now the same can be said for finding math resources. Victoria Miles, 7th grade math teacher at Abigail Adams Middle School, came upon Illuminations after a Google search directed her to the site.
"I was looking for an interactive tool to enhance instruction for volume of prisms. I did a Google search and found the Illumination Cubes applet," said Miles.
Miles strives to incorporate technology into her classroom whenever possible, and now regularly uses Illuminations tools to help actively engage her students. She also has created activity sheets to accompany student exploration for each Illuminations tool.
"My students are actively engaged when they work on applets. After students explore mathematics using technology, I have noticed more students participating in classroom discussion," said Miles.
Miles brought her insights to the 2009 Illuminations Summer Institute in which she and several other exceptional teachers worked to develop new lessons for the site. Miles worked diligently to bring her tessellations tool from a dream to reality.
"I really wanted a tessellation tool that could do it all: copy, clone, and use shapes from polygons to dodecagons," said Miles. "This new tessellations tool has everything I wanted for construction and exploration of the concept."
Students can now explore tessellations using the friendly, easy-to-use Tessellations Creator suggested by Miles and built by Illuminations. Moving forward, Miles hopes to incorporate new Illuminations lessons to help her students in areas where they may be struggling. She will also continue to spread the love, as she works with colleagues, as they share ideas for bringing technology into their classrooms using Illuminations.
Originally Appeared in Bright Ideas 10/7/09