Designing a gesture-based app to support multiplicative thinking: pedagogical issues, and early results

10.12.2018, 16:15 - 17:45  –  Universität Potsdam, Institut für Mathematik, Campus Golm, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Haus 28, Raum 0.108
Berlin-Brandenburgisches Seminar Mathematik und ihre Didaktik

Prof. Dr. Nathalie Sinclair (Simon Fraser University, Kanada)

Multiplication is often taught as repeated addition, especially in the early years of school, which leads to challenges for students when they encounter situations in which they have to think multiplicatively. TouchTimes is a new multitouch App that builds on the insights of prior work (especially with TouchCounts) that has been designed to offer a gesture-based mode of mathematical manipulation and communication. It has been designed to offer a more Davydovian approach to multiplication that enables haptic, symbolic and visual forms of engagements. I will report on preliminary results, focusing primarily on the bi-handed gestural interactions that 8-9 year-old children use to express multiplicative events.