This article describes how visual representations can help develop students’ reasoning and proof skills.
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Developing Skills with Visual Representations
Ruthmae Sears
Puddle Play!
Deanna Pecaski McLennan
You Must Be Joking!
May 2020 For the Love of Mathematics Jokes
Triangle Center Technology
Anne Quinn
The paper discusses technology that can help students master four triangle centers -- circumcenter, incenter, orthocenter, and centroid. The technologies are a collection of web-based apps and dynamic geometry software. Through use of these technologies, multiple examples can be considered, which can lead students to generalizations about triangle centers.
Triangles from Three Points
Wayne Nirode
Using technology to solve triangle construction problems, students apply their knowledge of points of concurrency, coordinate geometry, and transformational geometry.
Technology-Enhanced Discovery
Chris Harrow and Lillian Chin
Exploration, innovation, proof: For students, teachers, and others who are curious, keeping your mind open and ready to investigate unusual or unexpected properties will always lead to learning something new. Technology can further this process, allowing various behaviors to be analyzed that were previously memorized or poorly understood. This article shares the adventure of one such discovery of exploration, innovation, and proof that was uncovered when a teacher tried to find a smoother way to model conic sections using dynamic technology. When an unexpected pattern regarding the locus of an ellipse's or hyperbola's foci emerged, he pitched the problem to a ninth grader as a challenge, resulting in a marvelous adventure for both teacher and student. Beginning with the evolution of the ideas that led to the discovery of the focal locus and ending with the significant student-written proof and conclusion, we hope to inspire further classroom use of technology to enhance student learning and discovery.
If Only Clairaut Had Dynamic Geometry Tools
Hyewon Chang and Barbara J. Reys
Using Clairaut's historic-dynamic approach and dynamic geometry tools in middle school can develop students' conceptual understanding before they encounter formal proof in geometry.
An Intervention Including an Online Game to Improve Grade 6 Students' Performance in Early Algebra
Angeliki Kolovou, Marja van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, and Olaf Köller
This study investigated whether an intervention including an online game contributed to 236 Grade 6 students' performance in early algebra, that is, solving problems with covarying quantities. An exploratory quasi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest-control-group design. Students in the experimental group were asked to solve at home a number of problems by playing an online game. Although boys outperformed girls in early algebra performance on the pretest as well as on the posttest, boys and girls profited equally from the intervention. Implications of these results for educational practice are discussed.
Playing Mathematical Instruments: Emerging Perceptuomotor Integration With an Interactive Mathematics Exhibit
Ricardo Nemirovsky, Molly L. Kelton, and Bohdan Rhodehamel
Research in experimental and developmental psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience suggests that tool fluency depends on the merging of perceptual and motor aspects of its use, an achievement we call perceptuomotor integration. We investigate the development of perceptuomotor integration and its role in mathematical thinking and learning. Just as expertise in playing a piano relies on the interanimation of finger movements and perceived sounds, we argue that mathematical expertise involves the systematic interpenetration of perceptual and motor aspects of playing mathematical instruments. Through 2 microethnographic case studies of visitors who engaged with an interactive mathematics exhibit in a science museum, we explore the real-time emergence of perceptuomotor integration and the ways in which it supports mathematical imagination.
Pattern-block frenzy
Katie L. Anderson
Teachers share success stories and ideas that stimulate thinking about the effective use of technology in K–grade 6 classrooms. This article describes a set of lessons where sixth graders use virtual pattern blocks to develop proportional reasoning. Students' work with the virtual manipulatives reveals a variety of creative solutions and promotes active engagement. The author suggests that technology is most effective when coupled with worthwhile mathematical tasks and rich classroom discussions.
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