AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFFECTS OF DYNAMIC GEOMETRY SOFTWARE (DGS) ON STUDENTS’ THINKING PREFERENCES: SOLVING GEOMETRY PROBLEMS WITH AND WITHOUT DGS

Year 2015, Volume: 2 , 215 - 225, 01.09.2015

Didem Akyüz

Abstract

Researchers suggest that students have preferences (visual and
non-visual) when solving mathematics problems. Many times students have
difficulties in solving problems because of one-sided thinking and weakly
associating other representations. Reform efforts support connecting visual
representations with non-visual representations in order to develop deeper
understanding.  This study investigates
how prospective teachers with different preferences for visual, non-visual, and
harmonic thinking solve geometry problems with and without using DGS. The study aims to explore whether
students’ use of DGS when solving geometry problems is related to their
preferences. Suwarsono’s mathematical processing instrument (MPI) was
administered to determine their preferences for visual and non-visual thinking.
Based on MPI instrument’s results and their performances of geometry problems
solved with and without DGS, three students were selected to be
interviewed.  Multiple case studies were
conducted to conduct a deeper analysis. The reason for selecting three students
was to take at least one person from each group based on their thinking preferences
so that different cases can be compared and contrasted. The results reveal that
regardless of students’ preferences preservice teachers preferred to use visual
solutions when they are asked to use DGS. When their solutions of DGS and
paper-and-pencil were compared, students’ solutions with DGS demonstrated more
conceptual understanding of the task than paper-and-pencil.

Keywords

Dynamic geometry environment, prospective teachers, geometry

References

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