I have always used concrete marupulatives, such as marshmallows and toothpicks, to create models for my geometry and discrete-mathematics courses. These models have come in handy when discussing volume, introducing the 4-cube, or illustrating isomorphic or bipartite graphs. However, after discovering what a dynamic geometry–software package could do for geometry teaching, which has been well documented by research (e.g., Battista and Clements [1995]), I realized that this type of technology also had much to offer for teaching graph theory in my discrete-mathematics course. Although this article discusses The Geometer's Sketchpad 3 (Jackiw 1995), any software that can draw, label, and drag figures can be substituted for Sketchpad.
Bringing a CURE into a Discrete Mathematics Course and Beyond
