Slavit Article

I just finished reading the Slavit article and it, again, stresses the importance of exploration of geometric concepts. I remember learning about these properties in high school and I recall that I was told they worked, probably shown a proof that I didn't understand, and required to memorize them. I also remember that I promptly forgot them when the semester was over! I agree with Slavit that triangle similarity should be explored and investigated so that students have a better understanding of the concept. However, it seems to me that the activity would probably not go quite as well in a middle or high school as it did in the college course. Even though the students in the course had probably not worked with triangle similarity since high school, they had done something with it before and would have at least vague recollections of that. These concepts would be brand new to middle or high school students and I think they would struggle with the ideas a little more and perhaps need a bit more direction in exploring the triangles. I do like the idea of using Sketchpad to explore this because it will show the students how side lengths may change but angle measures do not, and that is something that is difficult to do with straws or pencils.