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