2024 CTE-STEM Conference

MEd student Ms HUANG Yuting presented at the The 8th APSCE International Conference on Computational Thinkingand STEM Education (2024 CIT-STEM) at Beijing Normal University in Beijing. Her presentation is titled: Students’ Representational Activities in a Programming-Enhanced Environment: The Case of Linear Function.

Abstract:

With the development of information technology, integrating computational thinking (CT) in mathematics education has been widely highlighted by educators and researchers. Scratch is one of the child-friendly blocks-based programming tools that enables access to both mathematical and computational ideas. In order to effectively facilitate student-centered instruction with Scratch, understanding students’ thinking processes in this learning environment is essential. The Lesh Translation Model (LTM) provides an analytical tool to interpret and characterize students’ thinking processes across multiple representations. In this study, we conducted task-based interviews with three Chinese junior secondary students as they explored the idea of linear function in a programming-enhanced environment. We report on two themes characterizing the students’ mathematical representational activities, including their representations of amounts of change and representations of slope as steepness. Accordingly, we describe the students’ thinking processes by characterizing representational fluency through the LTM model and discuss the implications of integrating Scratch programming in mathematics education.