- Award ID(s):
- 1741792
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10100698
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Constructivist Foundations
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1782-348X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 601–613
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Seymour Papert’s 1972 paper “Teaching Children to be Mathematicians Versus Teaching About Mathematics” started with the summary statement “The important difference between the work of a child in an elementary mathematics class and that of a mathematician is not in the subject matter…but in the fact that the mathematician is creatively engaged….” Along with “creative,” a key term Papert kept using is project rather than the common notion of problem. A project is not simply a very large problem. It centrally includes a focus on sustained and active engagement. The projects in his illustrations were essentially research projects, not just multi-step, fullyprescribed, build-a-thing tasks, no matter how nice the end product might be. A mathematical playground with enough attractive destinations in it draws children naturally to pose their own tasks and projects—as they universally do in their other personal and group playgrounds—and to learn to act and think like mathematicians. They even acquire conventionally taught content through that play. Physical construction was always available, and appealed to such thinkers as Dewey, but for Papert computer programming, newly available to school, suggested a more flexible medium and a model for an ideal playground. A fact about playgrounds is that children choose challenge. In working and playing with children I’ve seen that puzzles tap some of the same personally chosen challenge that a programming centric playground offers. Children are naturally drawn to intellectual challenges of riddles (ones they learn and ones they invent) and puzzles; and adults are so lured by puzzles that even supermarkets sell books of them. So what’s the difference between real puzzles and school problems? What’s useful about creating a puzzle or posing a problem? How might puzzles and problem posing support mathematical learning? And what’s constructionist about this? This plenary will try to respond to these questions, invite some of your own responses, let you solve and create some puzzles, and explore how problem posing in programming and puzzling can support mathematics even in an age of rigid content constraints.more » « less
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Abstract Natural language helps express mathematical thinking and contexts. Conventional mathematical notation (CMN) best suits expressions and equations. Each is essential; each also has limitations, especially for learners. Our research studies how programming can be a advantageous third language that can also help restore mathematical connections that are hidden by topic‐centred curricula. Restoring opportunities for surprise and delight reclaims mathematics' creative nature. Studies of children's use of language in mathematics and their programming behaviours guide our iterative design/redesign of mathematical microworlds in which students, ages 7–11, use programming in their regular school lessons
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Active learning—
doing —supports learning.Collaborative learning—doing
together —supports learning.Classroom discourse—focused, relevant
discussion , not just listening—supports learning.Clear articulation of one's thinking, even just to oneself, helps develop that thinking.
What this paper adds
The common languages we use for classroom mathematics—natural language for conveying the meaning and context of mathematical situations and for explaining our reasoning; and the formal (written) language of conventional mathematical notation, the symbols we use in mathematical expressions and equations—are both essential but each presents hurdles that necessitate the other. Yet, even together, they are insufficient especially for young learners.
Programming, appropriately designed and used, can be the third language that both reduces barriers and provides the missing expressive and creative capabilities children need.
Appropriate design for use in regular mathematics classrooms requires making key mathematical content obvious, strong and the ‘driver’ of the activities, and requires reducing tech ‘overhead’ to near zero.
Continued usefulness across the grades requires developing children's sophistication and knowledge with the language; the powerful ways that children rapidly acquire facility with (natural) language provides guidance for ways they can learn a formal language as well.
Implications for policy and/or practice
Mathematics teaching can take advantage of the ways children learn through experimentation and attention to the results, and of the ways children use their language brain even for mathematics.
In particular, programming—in microworlds driven by the mathematical content, designed to minimise distraction and overhead, open to exploration and discovery
en route to focused aims, and in which childrenself ‐evaluate—can allow clear articulation of thought, experimentation with immediate feedback.As it aids the mathematics, it also builds computational thinking and satisfies schools' increasing concerns to broaden access to ideas of computer science.
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