MSHE member Keith Jones has two new co-authored articles on aspects of geometry education just published. Both are ‘open access’ so everyone can access and read the papers. One, entitled “Spatial visualisation reasoning about 2D representations of 3D geometrical shapes in grades 4 to 9”, found that 10-15 year-old students using either spatial visualisation or property-based spatial analytic reasoning was not enough to solve geometry tasks that required more than one step of reasoning and overcome the perceptual appearance (or ‘look’) of the given diagram. The other paper, “Interplay between paper-and-pencil activities and dynamic-geometry-environment use during generalisation and proving”, found that while use of ‘dynamic geometry’ software supported 14-15 year-old students in generalising a mathematical statement prompted by a geometry task, the students were initially unable to prove the generalisation while using the software but subsequently succeeded through their paper-and-pencil activity. Both papers point to improvements that can be made to students’ geometry education. More on Keith’s latest research can be found on his Twitter feed and on his ResearchGate profile.

Posted By : MSHE