Abstract:

A learning experience that is concentrated on sight and hearing is one of the most evident features of online teaching. In this paper we describe an activity which is aimed to include touch in learning, even for high school and undergraduate students. The minilabs are also open to high school teachers.
The activity consists of a miniseries of three labs, each one lasting thirty minutes.
The students are asked to construct a mathematical object within twenty minutes, under the guide of a teacher who shows all the steps on a camera; once the object is ready, a brief discussion on the object itself, its uses and on its mathematical properties follows.
The three objects are:
- a ruled surface made of woolen threads
- a pantograph made of strips of cardstock
- a kirigami fractal made of paper.
An important feature of these objects is that they are made with materials that are very easy to retrieve at home, as the minilabs take place during a lockdown period.
In developing this experience, we want to change the learning context focusing on some ideas that underpin active learning, such as promoting positive feelings and providing the joy of discovery for a learner with the learning by doing approach.
One of the basic ideas is to interact with students and engage them in concrete experiences with the aim of overcoming some problems emerged by the complexity of teaching and learning processes that have arisen in recent period, when a massive use of digital teaching has been required. Furthermore, we want to positively interact with students using some strategies such as providing tasks that reveal the mathematics underlying real facts and presenting activities that promote online dialogue.
The practical activities represent a pleasant integration to the classical theoretical lessons and stimulate interest in the study of mathematical and geometrical notions, often seen as boring arguments, when they are learned in a schematic or mnemonic way. Moreover, the possibility of being engaged for a short time led to active involvement by a large number of students.

Keywords:

Active learning, tangible tools, mathematical objects, student-centered learning, virtual laboratory.