SMART Notebook Lessons - Similar Polygons and Solving Systems of Equations Using Substitution

I've made it a goal to get more involved with lesson development using SMART Notebook with ETHS teachers that have the interactive whiteboards in their classroom. Several faculty members have taken me up on my offer to help plan, design, and implement Notebook lessons for their curriculum, and I'll be sharing our products here, though you can find all of the links with descriptions on my website or on SMART Exchange.

In Similar Polygons, we wanted to reinforce ratios and setting up proportions from word problems. I used the drag/drop capability to encourage students to see where the numbers were coming from when creating a proportion. We then used some of the measuring tools to discuss what makes two figures similar. Finally, we used drag/drop to label geometric figures and coupled with setting up proportions in traditional problems.

For the lesson on Substitution, we had students drag values into variables, thus putting a hands-on approach to substitution. We gradually built this out to include variables and later expressions. This led to a system of equations that we had drag/drop, inking, and checkpoint reveals. Finally, we explored how to handle equations where one has to solve for one variable before substituting into the second equation.

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