2024 RPC Conference - Rui

PhD stduent Mr Rui Liu presented at the Research Postgraduate Conference orgainsed by the Faculty of Education at the Univeristy of Hong Kong. His title of presentation is From Student Thinking to Curriculum Reflection: Based on Teacher-student Interactions in a Mathematics Teaching Experiment about Dilation.

Abstract:

Dilation, as a common phenomenon in daily life, is an important concept in secondary mathematics. In this report, we will first present how dilation is introduced in mathematics, including how the notion of dilation is conceptualised and defined in textbooks and situated in the curricula sequence as a type of geometric transformation. Then, we will share a multi-cycle teaching experiment in which we collaborated with a teacher and one of her students in the past two years to explore the student’s meaning construction about dilation. Within each cycle, the teacher firstly collaborated with the researchers to design a task to elicit the student’s thinking, then worked with the student on the task, and reflected on the student-teacher interactions in depth retrospectively. All the sessions were recorded and the artifacts of the teacher and the student were collected. By adopting the method of conceptual analysis, we will demonstrate a decomposed understanding of dilation constructed by the student and draw on the student’s thinking (both from the teacher’s perspective and researchers’ perspective) to critically reflect on the textbook content on dilation. Finally, stemming from this case, we will conclude with the theoretical contribution to understanding dilation in secondary mathematics and the pedagogical implications of teaching this concept in secondary mathematical classrooms.