Summary and Synthesis

Today in class (Thursday 27th) we discussed area of polygons and triangles. First we learned how to find the area of a triangle by figuring out the area of the rectangle and dividing that by 2. Then we were given the task of finding the area of the polygons. At first I tried finding the area of the rectangle for each polygon and then dividing just like we did for triangles. That just gave me numbers that didn’t seem to fit. So then I tried to divide each polygon into triangles then find the area of those triangles rectangles and dividing by 2. That didn’t work either. But I never thought about taking the unused portion of the geoboard and finding the area of each of those then adding that up and subtracting that from the total geoboard to find the area. It all seems so easy now but that was one way that I would never of thought of on how to do it. The right way to solve for area is actually way easier then I was trying to make it when I was trying to come up with my algorithm.
I think it was good for the students to have to work on and try to figure out algorithms because it really got our minds thinking of all the different aspects to think about. To use this same strategy with younger students I think will benefit them just as it did us as college students. They will get a chance to look at and think about possible solutions and then will be taught the “right” solution and they will have a better understanding of why that is the “right” solution and why theirs didn’t work.