The Role of Requirements, Specifications, and Implementation in Constructing Dynamic Figures

Abstract

The past decade has seen a revolution in the teaching of schoolgeometry thanks to the introduction of dynamic geometry soft-ware.Constructing dynamic figures is an activity central to dy-namicgeometry software and requires a methodology differentfrom the traditional classroom approach to construction. Teach-ersand students who make use of such software need exposureto this methodology for constructing and exploring dynamic fig-ures.The key components of the new methodology are problemrequirements, formal specifications for figures, and implementa-tionof specifications for dynamic figures using dynamic geome-trysoftware. Analysis and solution of a nontrivial constructionproblem provides the setting for explaining the individual com-ponentsand how they work together to construct dynamic fig-ures.Both declarative and procedural approaches to constructingdynamic figures play a role in the solution to the constructionproblem. A new declarative dynamic geometry software will beused for implementation of specifications of dynamic figuresneeded in solving the construction problem.