She welcomes the opportunity to learn more mathematics as well as obtain some practical activities she can use with her students. As the teachers explore the various activities, they engage in a lively discussion of how their students would react to the tasks and how they could use the activities in their classrooms. Many of the activities involve using D-Stix to make cubes, rectangular solids, and different kinds of pyramids. Pat enjoys making the figures and discovering Euler's formula for the relationship among the edges, vertices, and faces of the figures. She thinks her students will enjoy these activities as well.
Professional development consists of exchanging ideas with other teachers.
After the workshop, some of the teachers compare notes and share activities they feel work successfully with their students. The teacher confers with her principal about obtaining materials for teaching geometry and providing students with experiences in spatial reasoning. After she returns from the conference, Pat approaches the principal about obtaining additional materials to help teach spatial reasoning. She describes her experiences at the state mathematics conference and shows the principal the emphasis on spatial reasoning in the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. The principal agrees to provide a modest amount of money to purchase D-Stix and other materials that Pat and the teachers could use to promote students' understanding of geometry.