Because you can make things with it’: A rationale for a project to teach mathematics as a multimodal design tool in secondary education

Abstract

This paper reports on the rationale for a new collaborative project at the University of British Columbia to develop multisensory software for secondary school mathematics learning. The project is described with reference to related mathematical, haptic, kinesthetic and musical software development for mathematics learning and in light of justifications for an embodied, multisensory, and fluidly translatable mathematics immediately applicable by students in purposeful ways. This paper offers a rationale and description of a newly-launched multifaceted collaborative design project for secondary school mathematics education. I will begin by outlining two big-picture problems in secondary mathematics noted by many educators: first, that many students have great difficulties dealing with an increasingly-abstract math curriculum as they progress through high school mathematics classes, and second, that traditionally-taught secondary school math classes do not address the modes of learning and being that secondary students live in their lives outside of math class, and thus miss many opportunities for engaging students in the learning of mathematics. An anecdote from the author’s own teaching experience is offered as a source of suggested approaches to the two problems introduced above. The rationale for a multisensory, fluidly multimodal approach to teaching secondary mathematics is outlined in terms of a review of theoretical and applied work already in progress in this area and some hypothetical questions the collaborative team is using to guide our design process. At the end of this paper, a description of the scope of this project and some details of its (proposed or realized) implementation are offered as an example of an integrated approach to the issues raised