Pick a Point

Dan Meyer posted a video in his blog this week of a workshop he did in Spokane last week. He had two different people pick a point from the image below.

The first person had to describe to the other where his point was located, describing it as in the middle, third up from the bottom. The other person was asked on a scale of 1 to 10 if they knew where the point being described was located. They did not. So the first person was asked to describe their point more specifically, which was described as having two points not directly under neither it, but off a little bit on an angle to the right.

This was the chosen point.

The second person was then asked to describe their point, except they had a little help.

Clearly, this made it very simple to describe where the point was located. The point of this activity was about naming points. One of the first things students learn in geometry is naming points and lines. Meyer created this activity to make it more interesting for his students. He did not want to do the boring, old defining terms and just letting the students forget about them.