Abstract:

Several reasons could be given to discuss about the importance of evaluating the potential of new digital technologies to incorporate visualization for the learning of mathematics. Several reasons also make this intention a difficult undertaking. In this presentation we aim to share the experience forming a multidisciplinary team able to give alternatives to transform mathematics curriculum to foster the development of visualization skills. Assuming in this skill the emphasis in visual aspects for triggering processes of mathematical thinking, the presence of emergent technologies, like Augmented Reality, is expected.

We want to focus on the development of certain skills that have not been explicit in the curriculum but nevertheless are important when you deal with mathematics. We believe that in the teaching of calculus some cognitive skills have been taken for granted. Some of them result basic for the understanding of mathematics and useful in problem solving processes. We could identify spatial visualization as a cross-curriculum content that has been assumed as an innate skill in students. We could not agree with this, and took on the task of designing an educational resource improving the development of these skills. The experience we share here considers the production of an Augmented Reality Application which purpose is to promote the spatial visualization skill.

For its elaboration we recognized the necessity of gathering experts using graphical design software, also programmer specialists and mathematicians skilled in Mathematics Education. All of them participating collaboratively in a creative process for the construction of a didactical resource, the one that today we’re able to share.

The application considers three levels that could be identified with the three first calculus courses in college. The first level leads the student from a two-dimension vision to the three-dimension approach, where they will be able to interact by provoking intersections with a plane. The second level considers the visualization of solids of revolution and the construction of methods to compute their volume. The third level leads to the visualization of surfaces in space as graphs of a two real variable functions.

A pilot experiment took place in May 2014 to appreciate the impact of the application in classroom. An activity was designed with its use in a first calculus course in our university, where 20 students were involved working collaboratively in triads. In the present work we discuss about the development of the activity in classroom and about the information collected about the students experiencing the application, where motivational aspects stand out. Nevertheless, the usefulness of the integration of visualization within the learning process is what motivates us to develop methods that could provide us with feedback about the cognitive event promoted by the interaction with this kind of didactical resources.

To transform the learning of Mathematics to make it an interesting and attractive, in addition to being useful for the development of mathematical skills, is the target that keeps us together as a team.

Keywords:

Augmented Reality, Calculus, App, Innovation, Visualization, Technology.