Discovering Geometry: An Inductive Approach

By: Michael Serra

Book Overview

...will spark new excitement in your geometry classroom, involving your students and making them active participants in their own learning This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559532009
• ISBN13: 9781559532006
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Key Curriculum
• Length: 834 Pages
• Weight: 3.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.5" x 1.3" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Best Geometry Book Ever

This geometry book is clearly written, has interesting visuals, usea excellent teaching strategies, and is simply the best book available. High school students at various levels seem to respond well to the textbook. I know math teachers who think this book is far superior to any other. I wish they'd had geometry books like this one when I was in school!

An ex-math student

I loved this textbook when I was studying with it for 10th grade geometry. It takes very innovative approach to geometry and really allows the student to truly understand why certain geometrical rules and axioms exist. A must buy.

Helps students learn

As a Geometry teacher I love this book. It is true that their are conjectures with blanks in them, but there is always an investigation before where students are stepped through the investigation and then asked to look for a pattern. The idea is that students are working in cooperative groups and that if everyone gets the same result then you can start to think about a pattern. It is like having to do an experiment in science class. One reason I like the book is it gets the students involved, they are not passive learners with me standing in the front giving the rules. If the students can "discover" the pattern(s) themselves and put it into their own words, then they will remember it better. There is lots of educational research behind these ideas. The other item that seems to be mentioned a lot is the lack of a glossary. Again, (especially in chapter 2) students are given different groupings and are supposed to come up with their own definitions. Ideally, students would work in groups and then discuss as a class and agree upon the final definition. The teacher is guiding the students through these investigations so that students are not creating conjectures that are totally off base.

This is a "must have" book for all math teachers.

As a middle school math teacher, I have used Serra's book for 2 years with great success. It is written with just enough wit to keep the students interested along with giving them an opportunity to explore geometry. Students are given the tools to discover "conjectures" relating to the basis of geometry and then are skillfully led into writing formal proofs. This is not just a recipe for paper and pencil activities. The learner uses materials that enable him/her to get hands-on experience in learning geometry. After this introductory course, my students go on to high school "Honors Geometry". The Honors teachers are continually impressed with the background the students possess.

Discovering Geometry: An Inductive Approach (Excellent!)

This is an excellent book! It clearly explains geometry and gives it a hands-on approach. Students discover the conjectures for geometry through tough, fun, and challenging excercises. The textbooks starts out "easy" and gradually gets to a very challenging level. Most students will clearly understand the fundamentals of geometry after studying this textbook. Overall, this is an excellent textbook.A similar (self-study) book is Geometry for the Practical Man by J.E. Thompson(c) 1962.