Hammering Home Geometry: A Hands-On Student Teaching Experience
Lorenzo Jennings is studying math education, statistics, and computer science at Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy. He’s currently student teaching at Evanston Township High School (ETHS) and finishing his final year of the TeachEd program, through which he is earning a Bachelor's of Education in Secondary Teaching.
As part of Lorenzo Jennings’ student teaching placement, he had an unusual opportunity to student teach in the school's Geometry in Construction class, in which high school students use geometry techniques and theories to build a house. After the house is constructed, it is sold as affordable housing. In celebration of International Day of Mathematics, we asked Lorenzo about his experience.
What was it like to discover you would be helping build a house as part of your class? It was a surreal feeling. Last summer I had the opportunity to see the completed house from last year, and it was awesome. It still feels unreal.
How was student teaching a hands-on class like Geometry in Construction different from algebra and calculus? The dynamics of the class are different. The class is co-taught by a construction teacher and a geometry teacher. As a student teacher, I’ve fully taken over the geometry side of the class. And all the decisions for the class are built around having the two subjects support each other.
Does the weather play a role? We’ll have construction days when it is warm, and on those days the construction teacher leads. I help out where I can – hammering nails or helping the students get precise measurements, for instance. Before coming into this, I didn’t know much about construction – and the students know more than me at this point!
What is the process like for the students? How are they thinking about geometrical principles while they are working on the house? In the first month, they start with small tasks, such as practicing nailing and measuring. Measurement is very important and a major focus early on. Then, their first building project is just a little set of three stairs, before they start building the rest of the house.
What is your role as the geometry teacher? I’m trying to help them connect what they’re learning in the geometry side and apply it to the construction side. For example, when you’re building the walls of the house, you want them to be perpendicular and perfectly straight. You have to ensure the angle of the wall is 90 degrees – how can you tell that without a protractor? So I show them how they can do it just through measurements.
How would you think about applying this kind of hands-on experience to your future teaching practice? For me, it all boils down to having a curricular vision that tells a story. In the Geometry in Construction class, it’s really easy to see the story that’s being told – of building the house and going through the process using mathematical tools. But even in my calculus and algebra class, I’m thinking about telling a story.
For example? In algebra we are starting square roots. We just did exponents, so I’m trying to frame the story as: “if you multiply this number by itself, you get this number. What if you were going in the opposite direction?” Just trying to give some sort of narrative and go deeper than just surface level procedures.
Would learning through this framework would have changed your experience as a high school student? I was always attracted to math because it is very procedural. There are truths in this world of the language of math that I can always manipulate, that I can work with and use as different tools. Think in Algebra, the FOIL technique (first, inner, outer, last) as a way to multiply binomials, or in Geometry, how you can use the Law of Sines and the Law of Cosines in your calculations. I am very analytical, and I am good at following patterns. But there are some people who just aren’t wired that way. And I think that presenting this other method of learning math as a story could help people who struggle with math to connect with it more and bring everyone together.