Discuss with Your Colleagues: Equiareal Polygons: A Mathematical Conversation about a New Concept
This article describes an activity that is connected with mathematical definitions and that illustrates the process of gradual refinement as a way to understand and construct knowledge. It presents a gradual construction of a specific geometry concept that was the result of the interaction among the participants in a mathematical discourse (Pimm 1987). This activity took place at the end of a professional development program for teachers of secondary school geometry. During this fourteen-week program, the participants were exposed to the NCTM's Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989) and to several activities adapted from two volumes in the Addenda Series: Geometry in the Middle Grades (Geddes 1992) and Geometry from Multiple Perspectives (Coxford 1991).