Technologically Embodied
Geometric Functions
About this website

With Technologically Embodied Geometric Functions, students develop conceptual metaphors that directly relate computer-based sensory motor experiences of abstract function concepts. This approach relies on four foundations:

Web Links
Ferris Wheel Sample Lesson
Get Sketchpad
Get Sketchpad Explorer
Sine of the Times blog
Use the Materials, Support the Work

We’re working hard to create the sketches, worksheets, and support materials for these Web Sketchpad activities. Ours is a volunteer effort on the part of everyone involved, both curriculum developers and field testers, and we make these activities freely available for you to download and use with your own students.

As we develop, revise and expand the activities, we need your help. Email your commentary (What worked well? What didn’t?) and your suggested improvements to the webmaster.

Extending Zalman's vision: Transformations and Functions in the Digital Age

Invited presentation by Scott Steketee at the Symposium Honoring Zalman Usiskin, University of Chicago, November 2014

This invited presentation explores how the vision of Zalman Usiskin's ground-breaking Geometry: A Transformation Approach is even more compelling now than it was over 40 years ago. Students can use dynamic mathematics software to create and drag the two-dimensional variables of geometric transformations, they can compose the resulting functions, and they can restrict the variables to number lines to create linear functions and even to construct their Cartesian graphs. Given our current understanding of cognitive science and of pedagogy, it's time to bring to every student Zal's vision of connecting geometry and algebra through function concepts.

Here's a movie of the presentation:

And here's a link to a Web Sketchpad version of the example, from the presentation, of connecting geometric transformations to Cartesian graphs of linear functions.


Update History:
 08 September 2015: Created this page.