How can a student experience what happens in the mind of a mathematician while solving a problem? In this paper we discuss a theoretical design of an educational script, based on digital interactive storytelling. Parallel to Docter's 'Inside Out', the cognitive functions occurring in problem solving become characters of a story-problem. Students…

The aim of this article is to advise readers that natural numbers may be introduced as ordinal numbers or cardinal numbers and that there is an ongoing discussion about which come first. In addition, through several examples, the authors demonstrate that in the process of answering the question "How many?" one may, if convenient, use…

In this article we compare two frameworks for analysing young children's responses to the task of copying and extending a 6-dot triangle pattern. We used Mulligan & Mitchelmore's Awareness of Mathematical Pattern and Structure (AMPS) and then Biggs & Collis' SOLO taxonomy, both of which provide criteria for assigning levels. In comparison…

Not-knowing is an underexplored concept defined as an individual's ability to be aware of what they do not know to plan and effectively face complex situations. This paper focuses on analyzing students' articulation of not-knowing while completing geometric reasoning tasks. Results of this study revealed that not-knowing is a more cognitively…

Certain aspects of theoretical frameworks in mathematics education can remain unexplained in the literature, hence unnoticed by the readers. It is thus interesting to participate in a dialogue where they can be discussed and compared in terms of the aims, objects studied, results and their relation to teaching. This study is focused on how APOS…

The observation that the human mind operates in two distinct thinking modes--intuitive and analytical- have occupied psychological and educational researchers for several decades now. Much of this research has focused on the explanatory power of intuitive thinking as source of errors and misconceptions, but in this article, in contrast, we view…

In this paper I take a positive view of ambiguity in the learning of mathematics. Following Grosholz (2007), I argue that it is not only the arts which exploit ambiguity for creative ends but science and mathematics too. By enabling the juxtaposition of multiple conflicting frames of reference, ambiguity allows novel connections to be made. I…

In this paper, we engage in a thought experiment about how students might notate their reasoning for composing fractions multiplicatively (taking a fraction of a fraction and determining its size in relation to the whole). In the thought experiment we differentiate between two levels of a fraction composition scheme, which have been identified in…

In this paper I argue my opposition to the consensus which has dominated the literature that young children view shapes as a whole and pay no attention to shape structure and that geometrical thinking can be described through a hierarchical model formed by levels. This consensus is linked to van Hiele's weok by van Hiele-based research. In the…

Current conceptualizations of knowing and learning tend to separate the knower from others, the world they know, and themselves. In this article, we offer "relationality" as an alternative to such conceptualizations of mathematical knowing. We begin with the perspective of Maturana and Varela to articulate some of its problems and our alternative.…

Discusses the concept of symmetrisation--the mental process in which individuals are not able to distinguish separate entities--in relation to students freezing before a mathematics problem. Examines whether the development of the concepts of fraction and equation in two mathematics textbooks addresses the problem of symmetrisation. (MDH)

Discusses the psychological process of suppression in relation to how individuals perceive mathematics. (MDH)

How students are convinced that they have the correct solution to a problem, free of contradiction, is discussed. The role of counterexamples and the need for a situational analysis of problem-solving behaviors are each included. (MNS)

Didactic transposition theory asserts that bodies of knowledge are designed not to be taught but to be used. Discusses didactic transposition, the transposition of knowledge regarded as a tool to be used to knowledge as something to be learned in mathematics textbooks. (14 references) (MDH)

The roles and uses of symbols in mathematical thinking are discussed. The thinking process is further subdivided into specialization, generalization, and reasoning. (MP)