Search for: All records

This study investigates the interactions between informal educators and adolescents during math walk activities at an art museum. “Math walks” are activities where students notice and wonder about mathematics in the world around them, often creating their own “math walk stops” where they ask and answer mathematical questions. Drawing upon theories of informal math learning, scaffolding, and problem-posing, our research aims to enhance understanding of math walk implementation. Through video content, interaction analysis and artifact analysis of participants’ iPad photos, we explore students’ mathematical learning processes and the role of adult facilitators in guiding these activities. Results from a three-day summer camp are given, and findings offer implications for designing effective informal math education programs and fostering meaningful student engagement with mathematics in real-world contexts. 

This qualitative study examines the use of math walks with middle grade students and adult facilitators at a local zoo. Drawing on situated learning and participation frameworks, we used interaction and stance analysis to compare two contrasting cases: In the first case, the adult chaperone asked more questions and evaluated student responses. In the second case, the adult chaperone intervened less frequently, leaving more room for student discourse. Findings support efforts to design informal math learning activities which amplify student voices, towards increased mathematical interest and learning. 

Math walks are informal learning activities where students create mathematical meaning from their everyday surroundings. In this qualitative study, we observed 5th–8th-grade students (N = 52) across three urban informal learning sites (a community center, a zoo, and an aviation museum) as they created their own math walks exploring geometric concepts. In a post-survey questionnaire, students described their attitudes toward math using affective language motivated by three psychological factors: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Implications for informal math learning are discussed. 

Abstract The heterogeneous and anisotropic articular cartilage is generally studied as a layered structure of “zones” with unique composition and architecture, which is difficult to recapitulate using current approaches. A novel hybrid bioprinting strategy is presented here to generate zonally stratified cartilage. Scaffold‐free tissue strands (TSs) are made of human adipose‐derived stem cells (ADSCs) or predifferentiated ADSCs. Cartilage TSs with predifferentiated ADSCs exhibit improved mechanical properties and upregulated expression of cartilage‐specific markers at both transcription and protein levels as compared to TSs with ADSCs being differentiated in the form of strands and TSs of nontransfected ADSCs. Using the novel hybrid approach integrating new aspiration‐assisted and extrusion‐based bioprinting techniques, the bioprinting of zonally stratified cartilage with vertically aligned TSs at the bottom zone and horizontally aligned TSs at the superficial zone is demonstrated, in which collagen fibers are aligned with designated orientation in each zone imitating the anatomical regions and matrix orientation of native articular cartilage. In addition, mechanical testing study reveals a compression modulus of ≈1.1 MPa, which is similar to that of human articular cartilage. The prominent findings highlight the potential of this novel bioprinting approach for building biologically, mechanically, and histologically relevant cartilage for tissue engineering purposes.