ERIC Number: EJ1096234
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 37
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1050-8406
EISSN: N/A
Learning Is Moving in New Ways: The Ecological Dynamics of Mathematics Education
Abrahamson, Dor; Sánchez-García, Raúl
Journal of the Learning Sciences, v25 n2 p203-239 2016
Whereas emerging technologies, such as touchscreen tablets, are bringing sensorimotor interaction back into mathematics learning activities, existing educational theory is not geared to inform or analyze passages from action to concept. We present case studies of tutor-student behaviors in an embodied-interaction learning environment, the Mathematical Imagery Trainer. Drawing on ecological dynamics--a blend of dynamical-systems theory and ecological psychology--we explain and demonstrate that: (a) students develop sensorimotor schemes as solutions to interaction problems; (b) each scheme is oriented on an "attentional anchor"--a real or imagined object, area, or other aspect or behavior of the perceptual manifold that emerges to facilitate motor-action coordination; and (c) when symbolic artifacts are introduced into the arena, they may both mediate new affordances for students' motor-action control and shift their discourse into explicit mathematical re-visualization of the environment. Symbolic artifacts are ontological hybrids evolving from things with which you act to things with which you think. Students engaged in embodied-interaction learning activities are first attracted to symbolic artifacts as prehensible environmental features optimizing their grip on the world, yet in the course of enacting the improved control routines, the artifacts become frames of reference for establishing and articulating quantitative systems known as mathematical reasoning.
Descriptors: Mathematics Education, Ecological Factors, Educational Theories, Theory Practice Relationship, Perceptual Motor Learning, Affordances, Mathematics Activities, Learning Activities, Mathematics Skills, Attention, Mediation Theory, Educational Technology, Educational Research
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A